UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 
AT  LOS  ANGELES 


GIFT   OF   CAPT.   AND    MRS. 
PAUL  MCBRIDE  PERIGORD 


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THE 

Coming  Land  Policy 


WILLIAM  THUM 


The  Antithesis  of  the  Single  Tax  Policy 


Supplement  to 
UNTAXING  THE  CONSUMER 


1920 

WILLIAM  THUM 

Publisher 

Pasadena,  California 


PrcH  of  Puadena  Star-New* 

<5 


1443  ;>  ' 


1 


Copyright,  1920,  J 

By  William  Thum.  *> 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introduction i 

Foreword 1 

Need  of  An  Able  National  Land  Commission     .     1 

Reasonable  Socialization 3 

Must  Stop   Land   Speculation 4 

First  Step    (Rural   Colonization) 6 

Second  Step,  Part  A.  (Maximum  Legal  Selling 
Price  Beyond  Which  the  Public  Cannot  Le- 
gally Go) 6 

Second  Step,  Part  B.  (Maximum  Legal  Selling 
Price  in  Transactions  Between  Private  In- 
terests)      17 

Five  Checks  to  Speculation 20 

Third  Step  (Unlimited  Right  to  Condemn  Pri- 
vate Land),  How  to  Solve  the  Land  Problem 

in  Cities -27 

Fourth  Step  (Minimum  Use  of  Land)     .     .        28 
Fifth  Step  (Introduction  of  Tax  on  Individual 

Incomes  Derived  from  Settlement  Lands)     .     29 
Sixth   Step     (Fixing    Maximum    Size  of  Tax- 
free  Parcels  of  Land  and  Amount  of  Taxes 

on  Excess  Holdings) 32 

Seventh   Step    (Price  Regulation   of  Essential 

Agricultural  Products) 34 

Eighth  Step   (Eliminating    the    Items  of  Raw 
Land  and  General  Public  Improvements  from 
the  Maximum  Legal  Selling  Price)     ...     35 
Ninth  Step  (Placing  All  Agricultural  Land  Un- 
der the  Farm  Settlement  Plan)     ....    37 


CONTENTS— CoNT. 

PAGE 
The  Most  Important  Step    (A  Land  Problem 

Commission) 38 

Contemporary  Steps  (Obtaining  Public  Control 
Over  Our  Other  Natural  Resources)      ...  39 

Time  Table  Condensed 43 

The  Possibility  of  Carrying  Out  the  Land  Policy  48 
Appendix  One  (The  Writer's  Qualification)    .     .  50 
Appendix  Two    (Equalizing  Economic  Oppor- 
tunity in  Agriculture) 54 

Appendix  Three  (The  Department  of  Agricul- 
ture's Stand  on  Cost  Keeping  for  Farmers)     .  59 


THE  COMING  LAND 
POLICY 


SUPPLEMENT  TO 

UNTAXING  THE  CONSUMER 


INTRODUCTION 


This  summer  I  intended  to  revise  my  book  "Un- 
taxing the  Consumer",  and  so  informed  my  corre- 
spondents, as  it  needs  improvement  in  many  places. 
For  the  present  reader  who  did  not  see  die  book 
I  quote  from  its  introductory  pages  with  slight 
modifications,  and  suggest  that  the  book  be  read  in 
full  in  connection  with  this  discussion. 

"Although  this  book  deals  largely  with  the 
untaxing  of  the  consumer,  in  addition  to  that 
its  first  two  chapters  treat  the  land  question 
in  its  relation  to  prices  of  commodities.  The 
purpose  is  really  to  ask  questions  and  not,  as 
might  seem,  to  offer  convictions  or  facts;  also 
to  show  advocates  of  various  tax  systems  the 
nature  of  the  numerous  thoughts  and  questions 
that  are  likely  to  arise  when  citizens  are  pon- 
dering how  to  vote  on  Single  Tax  and  other  tax 
laws.  Some  of  these  questions  are  old  and 
have  been  discussed  many  times,  while  others 
are  new  and  have  as  yet  received  little  atten- 
tion, though  they  bear  on  the  old  and  make  it 
necessary  to  seek  new  answers.  The  remaining 
chapters  show  how  we  can  eliminate  the  al- 
ways troublesome  tax  problem  from  the  last 
great  natural  resource  still  remaining  in  pos- 
session of  the  public.  ♦  *  »  ♦  "j^e  tax 
question,  coupled  with  inseparable  economic 
questions,  creates  a  problem  so  deep  and  com- 
plicated that  the  best  amateurs  soon  become 
lost  in  a  quest  for  its  solution.  To  solve  the 
problem  by  nation-wide  experimentation  form- 


INTRODUCTION 

ulated  by  men  of  insuflficient  experience  would 
take  hundreds  of  years,  and  would  do  avoid- 
able harm  in  the  meantime  to  the  American 
public.  Some  way  ought  to  be  found  to  ap- 
point a  commission  of  life-time  experts  on 
taxation  and  economics,  composed  of  people 
who  possess  the  broadest  possible  social  train- 
ing and  experience  and  who  can  be  influenced 
by  nothing  except  facts  as  they  see  them  after 
due  study.  It  should  include  men  who,  in  the 
field  of  research,  measure  up  to  the  reputation 
of  Professors  Richard  T.  Ely  and  Edward  Als- 
worth  Ross  of  Wisconsin,  Thomas  S.  Adams  of 
Yale,  R.  A.  Seligman  of  Columbia,  0.  M.  W. 
Sprague  of  Harvard;  also  men  who  are  ac- 
knowledged leaders  in  business  management 
and  labor.  Their  task  should  be  to  formulate 
in  detail  a  tax  plan  and  work  out  a  revision  of 
such  part  of  the  social  system  as  may  be  im- 
perative in  making  fair  taxation  possible,  and, 
what  is  of  equal  importance,  the  commission 
should  devise  a  thorough  scheme  for  fully  in- 
forming the  public  regarding  this  plan  and 
for  putting  it  into  practice. 


"Why  do  Congress  and  our  State  Law -mak- 
ers leave  this  vital  problem  to  be  bungled  over 
by  self-appointed  amateurs,  like  the  writer 
of  the  present  book,  and  others?  A  develop- 
ment of  the  answer  to  this  question  would  re- 
veal why,  as  a  general  thing,  our  better 
planned  progressive  economic  and  social  moves, 
usually  only  of  the  most  limited  extent,  how- 
ever, are  inaugurated  after  amateurish  efforts 
of  self-appointed  economists  and  sociologists 


INTRODUCTION  iii 

become  a  serious  menace  to  what  little  orderly 
development  there  is  in  problems  of  this  kind." 

Instead  of  rewriting  "Untaxing  the  Consumer" 
this  summer,  I  decided  to  spend  the  time  in  pre- 
paring this  supplement,  giving  a  somewhat  specific 
outline  of  what  I  believe  may  be  the  coming  land 
policy.  The  dates  that  I  have  arbitrarily  given  for 
the  inauguration  of  the  various  steps  of  the  coming 
land  policy  are  premature,  unless  Business  itself 
takes  hold  of  the  land  problem  with  a  clear  under- 
standing of  the  same  and  a  high  public  spirit.  My 
intention  is  to  write  a  second  supplement  next 
year  as  a  justification  of  the  land  policy  de- 
scribed in  the  present  supplement.  I  plan  still  later 
to  rewrite  both  supplements  and  the  original  book, 
adding  new  material,  all  to  be  bound  in  one  cover. 
(See  Appendix  One,  page  50.) 

In  spite  of  the  work  required  to  develop  and 
administer  the  land  policy  here  described  and  the 
new  tax  policy  that  must  eventually  become  a  part 
of  it,  the  adoption  of  this  scheme,  which  is  the  an- 
tithesis of  the  Single  Tax  policy  of  Henry  George, 
will  present  far  less  difficulty  than  the  development 
and  application  of  Single  Tax.  What  is  of  com- 
manding importance  in  this  connection  is  that  the 
coming,  or  free,  land  policy  is  in  harmony  with  the 
most  logical  and  inevitable  line  of  development  in 
all  other  branches  of  social  growth  and  will,  there- 
fore, be  a  co-operative  rather  than  a  disturbing  ele- 
ment in  social  advancement.  The  elimination  of 
imy  important  disturbing  element  by  using  a  little 
more  reason  and  a  little  less  trying,  costly  experi- 
ment is  a  matter  of  the  greatest  importance  to  pub- 
lic welfare.  WILLIAM  THUM. 

Pasadena,  California,  October  1,  1919. 


THE  COMING  LAND  POUCY 


Foreword.  The  coming  Land  Policy  is  not  a 
matter  of  fancy.  It  is  here  in  its  incipient  stages 
and  is  bound  to  reach  its  maturity  in  the  course  of 
lime,  regardless  of  the  intervention  of  disturbing 
interests  and  experiments.  However  complicated  or 
difficult  the  plan  described  in  what  follows,  as 
practical  knowledge  in  regard  to  it  accumulates,  it 
will  appear  simpler  and  finally  be  regarded  as  an 
ordinary  feature  of  a  complex  social  scheme.  We 
doubtless  have  men  who  can  frame  a  plan  that  will 
be  highly  serviceable  at  once,  although  it  will  take 
years  to  perfect  it.  And  not  only  will  the  applica- 
tion of  the  policy  become  easier  with  experience; 
but,  as  soon  as  it  takes  on  an  orderly,  fairly  ad- 
vanced form,  it  will  so  react  ori  the  other  features 
and  policies  of  the  great  social  scheme  as  to  im- 
prove general  social  relations  and  conditions  al- 
most beyond  imagination.  To  bear  with  a  few 
years  of  increased  difficulty  or  complexity  in  the 
public  administration  of  our  greatest  resource,  land, 
in  order  to  gain  hundreds  of  years  of  a  higher  so- 
cial life  is  a  profitable  undertaking. 

Need  of  an  Able  National  Land  Commission. 

To  carry  out  the  suggested  plan  would  do  less 
violence  to  our  social  organism  than  if  we  followed 
our  usual  method  of  meeting  questions  of  this 
sort,  yet  it  would  result  in  an  earlier  and  greater 
good  to  society  at  large.  Our  present  method,  as 
is  well  known,  consists  of  treating  isolated  symp- 
1 


2  THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY 

toms,  after  conditions  have  become  dangerous  or 
unbearable,  with  limited  palliative  measures.  It  is 
true,  we  often  start  boldly  to  correct  some  general, 
deep-seated  social  ill  by  sweeping,  superficial  ex- 
periments; but  the  net  result  corresponds  with  the 
means  employed.  Although  it  is  not  possible  that 
any  general  land  policy  will  ever  be  suggested  in 
which  errors  will  not  appear  that  must  be  soon 
corrected,  if  prepared  with  honest  intent  by  the 
most  highly  qualified  of  our  students  and  workers 
in  economic  fields,  the  scheme  devised  by  them 
would  be  invaluable — in  fact,  indispensable  in 
profitably  carrying  out  the  desired  reform.  This 
raises  the  question,  why  do  they  not  do  it?  The 
expenditure  of  both  time  and  money  to  accomplish 
this  properly  is  too  great  for  trained  economists 
to  bear  alone.  It  is,  therefore,  necessary  that  the 
public  be  awakened  to  the  necessity  for  a  correct 
land  policy,  that  the  required  funds  may  be  made 
available  and  that  a  commission  or  commissions, 
made  up  of  capable  men,  shall  be  demanded  by 
public  opinion. 

A  Serious  Obstacle  to  Agricultural  Business. 

Hardly  anything  could  demonstrate  more  forc- 
ibly than  an  experience  of  Dr.  William  J.  Spillman, 
in  the  United  States  Department  of  Agriculture,  the 
almost  insurmountable  opposition  that  our  pro- 
fessional men  must  meet  in  endeavors  on  their  part 
to  introduce  a  reform  of  real  significance.  As 
chief  of  the  Office  of  Farm  Management  in  this 
Department  he  endeavored  to  devise  a  thorough, 
practical  system  of  cost-keeping  for  the  American 
farmer.  Now,  farming  done  in  the  interest  of  the 
agriculturist  and  the  consumer,  and  not  largely  in 
the   interest   of   intermediaries   urgently   demands 


THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY  3 

the  application  of  an  accurate  and  practical  system 
of  accounting  and  cost-keeping.  The  Agricultural 
Department  ,  in  contrast  with  its  exceptional  effi- 
ciency in  most  directions,  has  been  and  still  is  an 
obstacle  in  the  matter  of  cost-keeping  of  farm  pro- 
duction. But,  accounting  and  cost-keeping  are 
the  very  foundation  of  management  in  every  kind 
of  business — as  much  so  in  farming  as  in  the  larg- 
est industrial  enterprises.  In  fact,  cost-keeping  is 
one  of  the  most  important  features  in  the  first 
step  of  the  new  land  policy,  especially  as  it  ap- 
plies to  farms.  It  is  significant  that,  after  Dr. 
Spillman's  removal  from  the  Department,  this  De- 
partment deliberately  abandoned  the  development 
of  a  system  of  cost-keeping  for  farmers.  The 
Doctor's  own  statement  in  Appendix  Three,  on  page 
59,  reveals  the  blind,  antagonistic  attitude  of 
certain  large  financial  and  industrial  interests  to- 
wards enlightening  the  farmer  concerning  methods 
for  determining  the  cost  of  production.  Farmers' 
organizations  might  well  consider  employing  Dr. 
Spillman,  or  some  other  qualified  man,  to  carry 
out  the  work  that  he  was  prevented  from  complet- 
ing. 

Reasonable  Socialization. 

The  land  policy  outlined  in  this  chapter,  al- 
though not  based  on  an  intensive  study  of  the  sub- 
ject, but  on  practical  experience,  sets  forth  some  of 
the  principal  points  that  must  be  considered  in 
framing  any  land  policy.  It  also  is  offered  to  pre- 
sent the  idea  of  establishing  social  plans  with  time 
limits  conservatively  fixed  for  dieir  successive 
stages,  thus  furnishing  a  clear  goal  to  work  for 
and  a  better  basis  for  sustaining  hope  than  is  now 
in  vogue. 


4  THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY 

To  enter  upon  all  the  calculations  and  to  keep 
all  the  records  required  to  carry  out  what  follows 
will  seem  a  very  large  task  to  those  unfamiliar 
with  such  business  methods.  But,  after  this  public 
work  is  once  standardized,  it  will  prove  relatively 
simple.  The  business  experience  accruing  to  the 
general  public  through  working  and  carrying  out 
the  plan  will  be  a  great,  if  not  vital,  aid  in  properly 
socializing  our  country  in  its  more  common  eco- 
nomic phases  or  activities,  leaving  the  higher  hu- 
man activities  for  individual  undertaking  and  thus 
permitting  the  development  of  a  superior  type  of 
individuality. 

MUST  STOP  SPECULATION  IN  LAND 

State  Land  Settlement  Scheme. 

The  State  Land  Settlement  plan  of  California, 
together  with  affiliated  State  activities,  if  given  a 
fair  trial,  will  doubtless  accomplish  most  of  the 
objects  defined  on  pages  62,  63  and  64,  in  the  first 
edition  of  "Untaxing  the  Consumer",  and  will 
finally  settle  our  perplexing  land  question  as  far 
as  it  relates  to  agriculture;  provided  speculation 
in  the  land  coming  under  this  plan  is  brought  to 
an  end  relatively  soon  and  methods  are  adopted 
to  relieve  the  consumer  from  paying  indirectly  or 
otherwise  any  and  all  land  taxes.  (See  Appendix 
Two,  page  54). 

By  the  terms  of  the  California  State  Land  Set- 
tlement law  of  1917  the  State  purchases  and  sub- 
divides land  suitable  for  farm  communities  and 
develops  the  tract  with  roads,  an  irrigating  system, 
model  homes,  etc.  It  then  sells  farms  to  settlers  at 
cost  for  a  reasonably  moderate  cash  payment  down 
and  small  annual  installments,  charging  five  per 


THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY  5 

cent  interest  on  deferred  payments.  It  also  pro- 
vides these  settlers  with  such  Farm  Advisers  as  may 
be  necessary. 

Possibility  of  Failure. 

But,  until  the  taxes  on  farm  lands  (as  well  as  on 
improvements)  are  eliminated,  the  consumer  will 
always  have  to  pay  them,  however  indirectly,  and, 
unless  a  minimum  use  of  the  land  be  exacted  by 
the  State  as  a  condition  for  continued  ownership, 
and  proper  rules  be  established  for  determining  its 
maximum  allowable  selling  price,  as  well  as  the 
maximum  allowable  rent  based  on  such  price,  spec- 
ulation cannot  be  reduced  to  the  minimum  and  the 
work  of  the  State  Land  Settlement  Board  will  never 
result  in  the  good  it  seeks  to  inaugurate.  A  similar 
statement  applies  equally  to  urban  land. 

Working  Out  the  Problem. 

What  follows  constitutes  a  tentative  plan  for 
working  out  the  major  part  of  our  land  problem 
within  twenty  years  or  thereabouts,  and  for  its  prac- 
tically complete  solution  in  the  next  sixty  years. 
Some  scheme  similar  to  this  will  probably  have  to 
be  followed  before  our  land  question  can  be  settled 
finally  and  satisfactorily. 


6  THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY 

1919  and  Later. 

THE  FIRST  STEP. 

(Rural  Colonization). 

The  State  of  California  through  its  Land  Settle- 
ment Board  is  buying,  platting  and  improving  ag- 
ricultural land  and  selling  it  to  actual  settlers. 
The  Board  and  other  governmental  agencies  are 
disseminating  agricultural  knowledge  and  are  in 
many  other  ways  improving  rural  conditions,  to 
insure  the  success  of  colonization.  This  will  prob- 
ably be  continued  indefinitely. 

As  soon  as  the  Board  has  demonstrated  in  actual 
practice  that  it  has  developed  a  thoroughly  suc- 
cessful method  as  far  as  colonization  goes,  the 
"second  step"  will  be  in  order. 

Present  indications  are  that  unqualified  success 
for  the  first  step  will  be  proved  by  the  end  of  the 
year  1919,  and  will  be  universally  recognized 
within  a  year. 

1921 

THE  SECOND  STEP. 

PART  A. 

(Maximum  Legal  Selling  Price  beyond  Which  the 
Public  Cannot  Legally  Go.) 

Part  A:  This  step  should  be  taken  not  later 
than  1921  and  should  consist  of  devising  in  detail 
a  method  for  determining  and  putting  into  effect 
the  maximum  legal  selling  price  of  any  State  Set- 
tlement Farm,  in  cases  of  purchase  or  condemna- 
tion by  the  Public.  Unless  the  owner  be  willing  to 
sell  at  a  lower  figure,  this  price  will  equal  the  com- 
bined money  values  of: 


THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY  7 

a.  Raw   or   bare    land,   including   appurtenant 

general  and  special  public  improvements 
paid  for  prior  to  purchase  of  the  land  by 
the  State. 

b.  Appurtenant   general   public   improvements 

paid  for  through  taxes  after  the  original 
purchase  of  the  raw  land  by  the  State. 

c.  Appurtenant    special    public    improvements 

paid  for  through  assessments  or  other- 
wise, subsequent  to  the  original  purchase 
of  the  raw  land  by  the  State. 

d.  Private    improvements,    including    growing 
crops. 

e.  Initial  overhead  cost. 

It  must  not  cover  the  value  of: 

a.  Special  features. 

b.  Site   value    (economic    advantage   resulting 

from  location). 

EXPLANATION  OF  EACH  COMPONENT  PART, 
OR  SUBDIVISION,  OF  MAXIMUM  LEGAL 
SELLING    PRICE    OF    SETTLEMENT 
FARMS  IN  CASES  OF  ACQUISI- 
TION   OF    SUCH    FARMS 
BY  THE  PUBLIC 

Ravir  Land. 

For  the  purposes  of  this  discussion,  when  Set- 
tlement Farms  are  sold  by  private  owners  the  value 
of  land  in  its  raw  or  nearly  raw  condition  is  based 
on  the  original  purchase  price  paid  by  the  State 
when  procuring  the  tract  for  subdivision,  it  being 
understood  that  the  State  will  first  have  sold  the 
Settlement  Farm  to  the  farmer  for  an  amount  which 
includes  the  raw  land  practically  at  the  said  pur- 
chase price,  plus  expenses  of  handling. 


8  THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY 

Haphazard  determination  of  prices. — Under  our 
present  social  system  the  selling  prices  of  a  vast 
majority  of  things,  including  land,  that  are  objects 
of  sale  on  the  market  are  determined  by  a  crude, 
unscientific  and  haphazard  method. 

Especially  in  cases  of  sales  between  private  in- 
terests the  commercial  selling  value  of  a  farm, 
whether  it  be  a  highly  improved  five-acre  lot  or  a 
slightly  improved  hundred-thousand-acre  ranch,  is 
based  on,  or  rather  influenced  by,  many  conditions, 
such  as  (a)  directly  appurtenant  public  improve- 
ments; (b)  a  certain  portion  of  indirectly  appur- 
tenant public  improvements;  (c)  present  worth  of 
private  improvements  belonging  to  the  farm;  (d) 
net  benefits  accruing  to  the  farm  from  public  and 
private-owned  public  utilities;  (e)  value  of  other 
benefits  accruing  to  the  farm  from  its  being  an  in- 
tegral part  of  a  community,  or  social  organization, 
to  the  development  of  which  it  may  or  may  not 
have  contributed  a  reasonable  share  through  taxa- 
tion or  otherwise;  (f)  estimated  prospective  net 
income,  whether  this  be  expected  from  the  business 
or  rent  or  increase  in  selling  price  of  the  farm,  or 
all  three;  (g)  special  features;  (h)  a  biased  state 
of  mind  both  of  purchaser  and  seller  at  the  time 
of  sale  (the  latter  often  endeavors  to  influence  a 
buyer  in  believing  the  property  worth  much  more 
than  its  real  value,  and  the  buyer,  purposely  or  un- 
intentionally, just  as  often  underestimates  its  value) ; 
(i)  financial  needs  of  the  seller;  (j)  financial  re- 
sources of  the  buyer:  (k)  the  method  and  rate  of 
taxation;  (1)  demand. 

The  result  (expressed  in  terms  of  money)  of  the 
above  mentioned  influences  acting  in  combination, 
except  the  value  of  private  improvements,  is  super- 
ficially regarded  by  many  Single  Taxers  as  the  site 


THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY  9 

value.  In  a  manner  most  people  still  regard  the 
selling  price  thus  evolved  as  the  equitable  price  of 
land.  Fortunately  all  of  these  enumerated  influ- 
ences affecting  the  commercial  price  of  farm  land 
have  had  up  to  the  time  the  State  buys  it  a  rela- 
tively weak  effect  on  the  price  of  the  class  of  land 
the  State  Land  Settlement  Board  must  acquire  for 
colonization  purposes,  and  these  influences  are 
bound  to  remain  of  slight  effect  and  even  to  become 
weaker  as  our  new  land  policy  develops.  But  it  is 
to  be  remembered  that  the  price  of  item  "Raw  or 
Bare  Land",  up  to  the  date  of  purchase  by  the 
State,  is  reached  or  developed  imder  such  influences 
as  those  enumerated.  In  fact,  the  combined  effect 
of  these  influences  practically  establishes  the  price 
that  the  State  must  pay  and,  as  already  explained, 
what  the  State  thus  pays  is  essentially  the  amount 
regarded  as  the  value  of  raw  land  in  the  present  dis- 
cussion. This  statement  is  made  on  the  assumption 
that  the  State  will  not  acquire  other  than  undevel- 
oped or  lightly  developed  land  for  subdivision 
purposes.  In  this  connection  the  thing  of  vital  im- 
portance is  that,  after  purchase  by  the  State,  no 
addition  shall  be  made  to  the  price  of  the  raw  land 
item  of  any  Settlement  Farm,  except  for  the  cost  to 
the  State  of  handling  it. 

Scientific  price  of  farm  land. — ^Truly  there  can 
be  no  clearly  defined  relationship  between  the 
price  and  the  intrinsic  value  of  farm  land  at  the 
present  time.  But,  before  many  years,  it  will  be 
generally  apparent  that  in  a  society  having  highly 
specialized  production  prices  of  all  necessities  and 
fundamentals — especially  of  land — must  be  based 
on  the  most  scientific  principles.  As  a  matter  of 
fact  prices  should  be  a  thing  of  first  concern  and 
consideration. 


10  THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY 

As  explained  under  the  eighth  step  of  this  article, 
the  item  Raw  Land  should  in  the  course  of  time 
be  altogether  eliminated  from  figuring  as  an  item 
of  value  in  the  maximum  legal  price  of  Settlement 
Farms. 

General  Public  Improvements. 

General  Public  Improvements,  for  present  pur- 
poses, are  improvements  paid  for  out  of  general 
taxes;  that  is  to  say,  out  of  taxes  levied  in  com- 
mon against  all  the  individual  private  properties 
in  any  political  subdivision,  in  amounts  irrespec- 
tive of  the  particular  benefits  that  may  accrue  to 
such  properties  individually  from  these  improve- 
ments. It  would  not  matter  whether  these  general 
improvements  belonged  to  the  State,  as,  for  in- 
stance, the  State  capitol  building,  the  State  uni- 
versity, or  State  harbors;  or  to  the  county,  as  the 
County  Court  House,  County  Hospital,  or  county 
bridges;  or  to  the  district,  as  public  schools,  roads 
or  storm  drains,  etc. 

The  amount  included  for  general  public  improve- 
ments in  the  maximum  legal  selling  price  of  a 
Settlement  Farm  should  be  the  value  of  the  pro- 
portional part  of  this  kind  of  public  improvements 
that  apply  to  the  piece  of  land  under  appraisement, 
meaning  such  proportion  of  the  improvements  as  was 
paid  for  out  of  general  taxes  (as  distinguished  from 
special  assessments)  levied  on  the  farm  subsequent 
to  the  original  purchase  of  the  raw  land  by  the 
State  Board.  Proper  amounts  for  depreciation  and 
obsolescence  of  these  improvements,  up  to  the  time 
of  determining  their  value  (being  the  date  of  con- 
demnation or  repurchase  of  the  farm  by  the  State) , 
would  have  to  be  deducted.  However,  at  some  fu- 
ture date — call  it  1930 — when  the  method  of  taxa- 


THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY  11 

lion  will  have  become  appreciably  better,  the  cost 
of  any  furtlier  improvements  met  through  general 
taxation  should  cease  entering  into  the  maximum 
legal  selling  price  of  any  Settlement  Farm,  and 
that  part  of  the  price  at  the  time  covering  general 
public  improvements  should,  as  it  were,  be  gradu- 
ally liquidated  by  the  State  in  the  manner  provided 
for  in  Step  Eight. 

Special  Public  Improvements. 

For  present  purposes  we  will  consider  as  special 
public  improvements  those  paid  through  special 
assessments  levied  only  against  properties  particu- 
larly benefited, — each  property  being  assessed  rela- 
tively for  any  definite  improvement  according  to 
the  benefit  it  is  believed  to  derive  from  that  im- 
provement. The  amount  included  for  special  pub- 
lic improvements  in  the  maximum  legal  selling 
price  of  any  Settlement  Farm  should  be  the  present 
value  of  the  proportion  of  such  public  improve- 
ments as  has  been  paid  for  through  special  assess- 
ments levied  against  the  farm  in  question.  To  this 
should  be  added  the  present  value  of  public  im- 
provements which  are  beneficial  to  the  farm  and 
which  have  been  constructed  through  private  initia- 
tive and  paid  for  by  voluntary  contribution  in  be- 
half of  the  farm.  As  in  the  case  of  general  public 
improvements,  depreciation  and  obsolescence  would 
have  to  be  deducted. 

More  Technical  Divisions. — To  be  very  technical, 
the  original  price  per  acre  that  the  State  Land  Set- 
tlement Board  pays  for  large  subdivision  tracts 
might  logically  be  divided  into  three  parts:  one  to 
cover  the  raw  land  proper,  one  to  cover  the  acre's 
share  of  special  public  improvements  paid  for  out 
of  special  assessments  on  the  land  up  to  the  time 


12  THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY 

of  its  purchase  by  the  State  Board,  and  the  third 
to  cover  the  acre's  proportion  or  share  of  the  gen- 
eral public  improvements  paid  through  general 
taxes  up  to  that  time.  If  this  original  purchase 
price  were  thus  divided,  the  amounts  respectively 
covering  special  and  general  public  improvements 
would  naturally  be  added  to  and  incorporated  with 
the  corresponding  amount  accruing  after  purchase 
of  the  land  by  the  State.  If  this  course  were  pur- 
sued, the  value  of  raw  land  would  be  somewhat  less 
than  the  amount  arrived  at  above  under  the  caption 
"Raw  Land",  and  the  value  of  both  special  and  gen- 
eral public  improvements  would  be  correspondingly 
more  than  the  amount  determined  according  to  the 
above  preceding  three  paragraphs ;  but  for  conveni- 
ence and  for  other  practical  reasons,  the  value  of 
raw  land  and  of  special  and  general  public  improve- 
ments., as  determined  under  their  three  respective 
captions,  will  be  employed  in  the  discussion  which 
follov/s. 

Private  Improvements. 

To  ascertain  the  maximum  legal  selling  price  to 
be  paid  by  the  public  for  private  improvements  on 
these  farms,  the  so-called  "present  worth"  or  "re- 
production cost"  must  be  determined  through  care- 
ful appraisement  of  all  preparation  for  growing 
things,  such  as  land  leveling  and  cultivation  and 
enrichment  of  the  soil ;  of  all  plant  life,  as  fruit  and 
shade  trees  and  crops;  of  all  structural  improve- 
ments, as  dykes,  ditches,  drains,  fences,  buildings, 
and  any  other  things  of  value  appurtenant  to  the 
farm  that  have  cost  labor  or  forethought  to  create 
or  conserve.  Proper  amounts  for  depreciation  and 
obsolescence  must  also  be  taken  fairly  into  account 


THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY  13 

in  determining  the  net  value  of  all  structural  im- 
provements. 

The  usual  official  auditors  and  assessors 
equipped  with  modern  training  can  co-operate  in 
devising  plans  to  keep  the  records  of  private  im- 
provements in  such  manner  as  to  reduce  to  a  mini- 
mum the  labor  and  cost  necessary  to  make  these 
calculations  and  appraisals.  Indeed,  this  can  be 
done  not  only  in  connection  with  private  improve- 
ments, but  with  raw  land  and  public  improvements 
as  well. 

Initial  Overhead  Cost. 

The  officially  estimated  average  of  the  so-called 
"overhead  cost"  of  putting  a  Settlement  Farm  of 
any  classification  or  type  into  operating  or  business 
condition,  as  of  the  time  appraisement  is  made,  will 
probably  be  expressed  principally  in  terms  of  per- 
centages based  on  the  total  fair  net  worth  of  the 
private  improvements  on  the  farm,  i.  e.,  those 
which  are  necessary  or  desirable  for  the  operation 
of  the  farm.  These  percentages  for  the  different 
classes  of  farms  would  have  to  be  determined  by 
methods  similar  to  those  already  standardized  by 
public  authorities  in  making  inventories  of  assets 
of  private-owned  public  utilities  when  condemning 
them  for  public  ownership  or  when  fixing  rates  to 
be  charged  the  public  for  their  services.  However, 
the  ascertainment  of  these  rates  of  per  cent  will  be 
difficult  until  reliable  data  on  which  to  base  such 
figures  have  been  accumulated  and  analyzed.  Pend- 
ing sufficient  experience  in  this  line,  the  appraise- 
ments of  this  item  of  "initial  overhead  cost"  should 
be  liberal  towards  the  owner  whose  property  is 
being  condemned. 


14  THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY 

"Initial  overhead"  in  the  development  of  farms 
is  a  real  item  of  cost  and  can  readily  be  accounted 
for  as  it  accrues  in  each  individual  case;  but,  be- 
cause of  the  extreme  variableness  of  farm  opera- 
lions  from  one  time  to  another  and  the  great  dif- 
ferences in  cost  of  development  on  this  account,  fair 
averages  must  be  employed  in  the  appraisement  of 
this  item  when  fixing  the  value  of  a  settlement  farm 
for  purposes  of  condemnation  or  sale. 

Since  average  "initial  overhead"  for  any  given 
class  of  farm  is,  practically  speaking,  a  certain 
percentage  of  the  value  of  existing  private  improve- 
ments (that  is,  those  that  are  necessary  or  desirable 
for  the  operation  of  the  farm),  and,  as  it  is  a  neces- 
sary and  unavoidable  expense  pending  the  con- 
struction of  these  improvements  and  pending  the 
opportunity  to  use  them  adequately,  such  "initial 
overhead"  might  fairly  be  regarded  as  a  legitimate 
part  of  their  cost.  However,  for  practical  reasons 
Initial  Overhead  Cost  should  be  treated  as  a  distinct 
item. 

Special  Features. 

Scenery,  social  surroimdings  or  other  special 
features  possessed  by  any  Settlement  Farm,  some 
or  all  of  which  might  in  certain  cases  be  suffi- 
ciently prized  by  purchasers  to  yield  a  considerable 
bonus,  should  not  be  given  any  value  in  case  of  re- 
purchase of  the  farm  by  the  public.  As  a  general 
rule  the  original  settler  is  not  supposed  to  pay 
much,  if  anything,  on  account  of  such  features  when 
he  purchases  a  Settlement  Farm  from  the  State, 
and  whatever  he  may  thus  pay  is,  as  already  shown, 
included  and  disposed  of  in  the  raw  land  item  of 
the  farm.  As  soon  as  the  law  providing  for  a  maxi- 
mum legal  selling  price  is  passed,  the  Public  should 


THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY  15 

be  generally  informed  that  Special  Features  will 
not  bring  a  price  when  condemnation  proceedings 
are  instituted  against  property.  This  would  be  a 
notice  to  any  successor  of  original  purchasers  from 
the  State  that  whatever  he  may  pay  for  or  on  ac- 
count of  special  features  will  be  at  his  own  risk. 

Site  Value. 

Prices  paid  by  the  Settlement  Board  for  tracts 
of  land  for  subdivision  will  probably  never  include 
more  than  a  moderate  amount  for  sheer  site  value 
and  for  special  features.  Therefore,  to  simplify  tlie 
subject  these  amounts  thus  paid  by  the  Board  are 
included  in  the  value  fixed  in  this  book  for  the  raw 
land.  The  money  value  covering  all  such  economic 
and  social  advantages  that  accrue  to  the  farm  (on 
account  of  its  location)  after  the  purchase  of  the 
land  for  subdivision  purposes  by  the  State,  meaning 
site  value  in  its  exact  sense,  would  include  the 
value  of  most  "special  features";  but  the  latter  are 
not  included  here,  the  purpose  being  to  keep  a 
separate  account  of  the  cost  of  each  of  these  fea- 
tures, so  far  as  any  may  bring  a  price  in  cases  of 
sale  between  private  interests.  Except  so  far  as 
the  Land  Settlement  Board  may  have  paid  extra 
amounts  for  imdeveloped  settlement  land  on  ac- 
count of  location,  or  special  features,  which 
amounts,  as  already  shown,  I  include  in  the  item 
"Raw  Land",  nothing  should  be  allowed  for  site 
value  or  special  features  when  the  public  repur- 
chases any  of  its  former  Settlement  Lands.  That 
is  to  say,  as  here  treated  the  site  value  and  the 
special  features  value  that  may  have  developed  up 
to  the  time  when  the  State  acquired  this  land  is 
covered  by  the  item  Raw  Land,  while  site  value  and 


16  THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY 

special  features  value  which  may  have  evolved  later 
are  separately  treated  under  their  respective  titles. 

Simplifying  the  Task. 

The  State  Land  Settlement  Board  will  probably 
be  equipped  with  a  department  to  assume  general 
supervision  over  the  price-fixing  of  farms.  In  or- 
der to  meet  contingencies  that  might  arise  in  vexa- 
tious cases  of  condemnation,  it  might  be  desirable 
to  provide  that  the  award  payable  by  the  State  shall 
in  no  case  of  this  kind  exceed  an  amount  deter- 
mined as  follows:  Let  a  qualified  body  of  men  ob- 
tain options  on  three  nearby  available  farms  se- 
lected and  appraised  by  them  as  individually  worth 
several  percent  more  to  the  owner  of  the  farm  than 
the  property  being  condemned.  Then  let  the  Court 
take  the  highest  of  the  three  options  as  the 
maximum  figure  over  which  the  condemnation 
award  may  not  go.  These  three  farms  should  be  thus 
held  under  option  by  this  selected  body  of  men,  in 
order  that  the  farmer  may  have  an  opportunity  to 
exercise  his  choice  between  them  and  purchase  the 
one  that  satisfiies  him  best,  if  the  award  has  been 
sufficient,  provided  he  prefers  to  do  this  rather 
than  retain  the  cash  awarded  him  through  con- 
denmation  proceedings.  This  arrangement  would 
often  simplify  such  condemnation  proceedings. 


THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY  17 

1921 

SECOND  STEP. 

PART  B. 

^Maximum  Legal  Selling  Price  of  Farms  in  Trans- 
actions between  Private  Interests.) 

Part  B  of  this  step  should  be  introduced  about 
the  same  time  as  Part  A.  The  object  is  to  determine 
and  put  into  effect  as  nearly  as  practicable  a  maxi- 
mum legal  selling  price  for  any  State  Settlement 
Farm  in  cases  of  sale  between  private  persons  or 
interests.  This  price  would  have  to  equal  the 
money  value  of: 

a.  Raw  land  (including  appurtenant  public  im- 

provements paid  prior  to  purchase  of  the 
land  by  the  State). 

b.  Appurtenant   general    public   improvements 

(paid  subsequent  to  the  original  purchase 
of  the  raw  land  by  the  State) . 

c.  Appurtenant    special    public    improvements 

(paid  subsequent  to  the  original  purchase 
of  the  raw  land  by  the  State) . 

d.  Private    improvements    (including    growing 

crops). 

e.  Excess  payment  on  private  improvements. 

f.  Initial  overhead  cost. 

g.  Excess  payments  on  initial  overhead  cost, 
h.     Special  features,  such  as  give  but  little,  if 

any,  economic  advantage. 
The  maximum  legal  selling  price,  however,  must 
not  include  anything  for  site  value  (the  supposed 
money  value  of  any  appreciable  economic  advan- 
tage due  to  location  or  other  causes). 


18  THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY 

Explanation  Regarding  Above  Values. 

The  value  of  raw  land,  general  public  improve- 
ments, special  public  improvements,  private  im- 
provements and  initial  overhead  cost  must  be  the 
same  in  amount  as  in  cases  of  condemnation  of  the 
farm  by  the  Public.  These  amounts  will  be  ascer- 
tainable mostly  from  public  records. 

Pending  a  period  of  practical  experience  in  the 
matter,  excess  payments  on  private  improvements 
might  be  considered  permissible  when  the  pur- 
chaser believes  that  this  item  in  a  particular  in- 
stance has  such  excess  in  value  for  him,  and  is 
ready  to  accept  the  risk  of  loss  involved  in  case 
of  condemnation  .suit  by  the  Public.  The  same  re- 
marks apply  to  excess  payments  on  initial  over- 
head cost.  Similarly  the  special  features  defined 
above,  which  may  be  possessed  by  any  Settlement 
Farm,  could  be  allowed  to  bring  a  price  in  case  of 
sale  between  private  parties.  But,  later  on,  if  it 
seems  necessary  to  neutralize  partially  any  profits 
derived  from  these  excess  payments  and  payments 
for  special  features,  these  profits  can  be  given  spe- 
cial treatment  tlirough  a  branch  of  the  Income  Tax 
employed  as  a  "limited  remedial  tax".  But  this 
method  of  remedying  an  economic  fault  is  defective 
and  should  be  used  only  until  a  more  logical 
method  becomes  available. 

No  part  of  the  price  paid  for  a  Settlement  Farm 
should  represent  so-called  site  value  or  other  form 
of  economic  advantage  possessed  by  some  farms 
over  others.  As  explained  later,  these  advantages 
should  be  approximately  equalized  by  other  means 
than  by  an  extra  sum  paid  to  the  owner  for  the 
land,  or  by  rent  paid  to  him  for  the  use  of  the 
land,  or  by  taxes  thereon  paid  to  the  Public.  Those 


THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY  19 

methods  should  be  superseded  by  better  ones  in 
Settlement  Districts  as  soon  as  possible  and  should 
be  elsewhere  eliminated  persistently  and  gradually. 

Special  Cases. 

Sales  of  Settlement  Farms  between  private  par- 
ties at  less  than  maximum  legal  selling  price,  or  of 
such  farms  sold  in  trade  for  other  property,  present 
problems  but  slightly  different  from  those  already 
treated  and  need  no  special  discussion  here. 
Laws  to  Enforce  Maximum  Legal 
Prices  of  Settlement  Farms. 

The  second  step  of  the  land  policy  must  include 
the  development  and  application  of  the  necessary 
laws  to  prevent  as  far  as  possible  prices  on  Settle- 
ment Land  that  exceed  the  maximum  legal  figure, 
thus  practically  excluding  compensation  for  loca- 
tion or  site-value.  Mere  suppression  of  the  selling 
price  of  site-value  would  still  leave  the  question 
of  economic  rent  for  the  future  to  solve.  The  farm 
owner  who  operates  his  own  property  has  the 
benefit  of  any  and  all  economic  rents  that  may  ac- 
crue to  his  farm.  Of  course,  in  this  case  he  does 
not  receive  rent  from  a  tenant  for  the  use  of  the 
land,  but  he  gets  the  benefit  of  this  rent  through 
the  products  that  he  sells.  To  finally  eliminate 
such  economic  rent  the  law  governing  the  selling 
price  of  Settlement  Farms  must  be  accompanied  by 
radical  laws  for  economic  rural  planning  and  cer- 
tain economic  laws — especially  those  governing 
prices  of  commodities.  (See  Footnote).  No  so- 
cial system  can  ever  be  wholly  just  until  economic 

FOOTNOTE:  By  economic  rural  planning:  I  mean 
such  arrangement  and  development  of  rural  districts  as 
tend  toward  equalizing  the  economic  value  of  all  farm 
units,  i.  e.,  of  each  maximum  tax-free  parcel  of  land, 
referred  to  more  fully  under  the  Sixth  Step  of  the  "Com- 
ing Land  Policy". 


20  THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY 

rent  is  entirely  eliminated,  i.  e.,  made  non-existent. 
This  must  not  be  done  by  eliminating  the  special 
benefits  that  cause  this  rent,  but  through  making 
these  benefits  general  or  universal  as  far  as  pos- 
sible. It  is  doubtless  true  that  the  enforcement  of 
an  act  fixing  the  price  of  Settlement  Farms  will 
evoke  subterfuges  to  block  its  application  for  a 
considerable  time,  as  is  the  case  with  most  restric- 
tive economic  laws.  For  instance,  a  well-to-do 
farmer,  in  order  to  purchase  a  tract  of  land,  might 
offer  more,  ostensibly  because  of  its  scenic  en- 
virons, than  he  would  ordinarily  pay  for  a  benefit 
of  this  kind,  while  his  hidden  purpose  might  be 
the  acquisition  of  certain  present  or  possible  future 
economic  advantages  in  location.  It  is  this  specu- 
lating in  the  special  economic  benefit  of  location 
within  the  limits  of  Farm  Settlement  areas  that  the 
legal  price-fixing  of  farm  land,  with  certain  sup- 
porting measures,  is  meant  to  check.  On  the  other 
hand,  a  farmer  may  be  willing  to  pay  for  a  farm 
more  than  it  is  really  worth,  not  for  speculative  rea- 
sons at  all,  but  solely  for  its  scenery  or  its  proxim- 
ity to  the  home  of  certain  relatives  or  friends,  etc. 
It  does  seem  that  a  lover  of  nature's  beauties  or  a 
man  fond  of  the  proximity  of  friends  or  other  such 
pleasures  ought  not  to  be  barred  from  purchasing  a 
site  possessing  such  features  if  he  is  financially  able 
and  willing  to  do  so,  even  if  he  be  required  to  pay 
an  extra  price  on  account  of  them.  The  problem  is 
how  to  prevent  the  use  of  subterfuges  as  an  aid  in 
speculating  in  location  or  site-value. 

FIVE  CHECKS  TO  SPECULATION 

However,  for  apparent  reasons,  in  dealing  with 
private  owners  nearly  all  prospective  purchasers 
of  Settlement  Farms  will  be  deterred  from  offering 


THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY  21 

more  for  the  bare  land  item  of  such  farms  than  its 
legally  figured  selling  price.  Likewise  a  prospec- 
tive tenant  will  find  little,  if  any,  incentive  to  pay 
rent  that  will  allow  more  than  a  fair  interest  on 
the  recorded  maximum  legal  selling  value  of  the 
raw  land  item  and  other  recorded  or  ascertainable 
legal  values  constituting  in  the  aggregate  the  full 
maximum  legal  selling  price  of  the  entire  farm. 
The  most  potent  reasons  for  this  would  be: 

1.  A  constant  supply. — ^The  State  has  for  sale 
on  easy  terms  equally  good  farms  favorably  lo- 
cated in  the  same  or  other  Land  Settlement  dis- 
tricts at  the  cost  of  the  bare  land  item,  improve- 
ments and  initial  overhead  cost.  This  fact  alone 
would  in  most  instances  and  without  legal  enact- 
ment prevent  better  offers  being  made  to  private 
owners  by  prospective  purchasers. 

2.  Equalization  of  intrinsic  worth. — A  public 
policy  is  quietly  and  surely  developing  to  make 
our  farms,  especially  Settlement  Farms,  more  equal 
in  agricultural  productiveness,  in  availability  to 
markets,  in  social  conditions  and  in  other  respects. 
This  is  more  fully  explained  in  Appendix  Two.  It 
is  beginning  to  be  felt,  if  not  clearly  foreseen,  that 
this  policy  will  in  time  tend  to  equalize  greatly  so- 
called  site  values,  and,  to  the  degree  in  which  this 
equalization  is  gradually  eflfected,  speculation  in  the 
economic  values  of  location  will  be  eliminated  au- 
tomatically, regardless  of  other  influences. 

3.  Steadying  of  prices  through  right  to  con- 
demn.— Whenever  it  is  clearly  in  the  public  inter- 
est to  do  so,  the  Public  will  doubtless  reserve  the 
right  to  condemn  for  private  purposes  other  than 
the  one  for  which  the  farms  are  at  the  time  being 
used,  any  of  the  farms  it  has  sold  to  settlers,  as  well 


22  THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY 

as  the  right  to  condemn  them  for  its  own  use.  The 
reservation  of  these  rights  will  hold  back  a  pros- 
pective purchaser  from  offering  an  amount  so  large 
for  any  farm  as  to  be  later  discounted  if  the  farm 
became  involved  in  a  condemnation  suit. 

True,  it  is  a  relatively  rare  occurrence  for  a  farm 
to  be  condemned  for  public  purposes;  but  it  does 
happen  and,  when  it  becomes  a  matter  of  common 
knowledge  that  the  Public,  when  acquiring  private 
land  in  Settlement  Districts,  will  pay  nothing  di- 
rectly or  indirectly  for  true  site  value,  then  a  pros- 
pective buyer  will  be  greatly  influenced  in  the  ofl^ers 
he  makes  a  private  owner  for  a  farm  in  such  dis- 
tricts. However,  since  the  public  will  reserve  the 
right  to  condemn  Settlement  Farms  for  the  pur- 
pose of  changing  their  use  not  only  from  private  to 
public  purposes,  but  from  one  kind  of  private  use 
to  another — as,  for  instance,  changing  a  portion  of 
a  farming  district  into  an  urban  center  or  industrial 
district — it  will  happen  more  frequently  that  farm 
lands  will  be  condemned  by  the  Public.  Under 
these  circumstances  the  greater  the  chance  or  like- 
lihood of  condemnation  the  more  certain  will  be 
the  individual,  who  purchases  Settlement  Land 
from  any  owner  other  than  the  State,  to  arrive  at 
the  amount  of  his  offer  by  the  method  established 
for  condemnation  by  the  Public,  which  would  be 
the  maximum  legal  selling  price.  On  account  of 
this  alone  the  opportunity  for  speculation  would  be 
greatly  reduced. 

4.  Keeping  public  records  to  give  assistance. — 
The  assessor  will  keep  a  public  record  revised  from 
year  to  year,  as  he  now  does,  showing  individual 
properties  and  their  respective  owners.  Annually 
he  will  also  determine  and  record  the  maximum 
legal  selling  price  of  raw  land,  of  private  improve- 


THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY  23 

ments  on  each  Settlement  Farm,  of  the  propor- 
tional part  of  the  general  and  special  public  im- 
provements appertaining  to  it,  and  of  initial  over- 
head costs.  The  assessor,  after  every  sale  of  a  Set- 
tlement Farm,  should  also  make  a  record  of  any 
amounts  that  may  have  been  paid  for:  a,  excess 
payments  on  private  improvements;  b,  excess  pay- 
ments for  initial  overhead  cost;  c,  special  features. 
The  amounts  of  these  three  latter  items  he  would 
naturally  obtain  without  delay  from  copies  of  deeds 
in  the  County  Records.  All  this  would  be  of  value 
for  income  and  other  tax  purposes. 

Such  a  public  record  will  have  a  compelling  in- 
fluence in  checking  speculation  in  site  values.  And, 
if  the  assessor  will  keep  a  yearly  record  of  the 
actual  cost  of  the  private  improvements  on  farms, 
as  he  probably  will  be  required  to  do,  instead  of 
the  inaccurate  records  now  maintained,  and  if  im- 
mediately in  connection  with  every  sale  he  deter- 
mines and  records  the  actual  present  value  of  such 
improvements,  the  chance  for  any  appreciable 
amount  being  paid  for  site  value,  through  pur- 
posely overpaying  for  private  improvements,  would 
be  still  further  lessened;  for,  in  the  face  of  such 
records,  the  purchaser  will  realize  that  he  may  have 
difficulty  in  obtaining  an  excess  price  for  the  im- 
provements in  case  of  resale.  The  same  thing  might 
be  said  of  excess  payments  for  initial  overhead  ex- 
pense, and  also  of  special  features. 

Something  akin  to  the  work  involved  in  prepar- 
ing these  records  has  now  to  be  done  by  the  indi- 
vidual farmer  for  income  tax  purposes  and  might 
as  well  be  done  through  the  county  assessors  in  be- 
half of  the  Federal  Government  (under  its  general 
supervision)  as  soon  as  they  as  a  class  are  equipped 
and  qualified  for  starting  such  records  for  Settle- 


24  THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY 

ment  Farm  Districts.  Thus  the  necessary  informa- 
tion would  be  available  and  uniform  for  all  kinds 
of  tax  purposes. 

5.  New  requirements  in  farm  deeds. — Once  the 
public  mind  is  bent  on  checking  speculation  in 
Farm  Settlement  land,  the  State  authorities  will  re- 
quire publicity  in  all  deeds,  and  in  all  valid  grants 
of  real  estate  from  private  owners  to  private  pur- 
chasers the  exact  amounts  paid  for  the  following 
items  will  have  to  be  stated  and  sworn  to: 

a.  Raw  land, 

b.  General  public  improvements, 

c.  Special  public  improvements, 

d.  Private  improvements, 

e.  Excess  payment  on  private  improvements, 

f.  Initial  overhead  cost. 

g.  Excess  payment  on  initial  overhead  cost, 

h.  Such  special  features  (separately  listed)  as 
give  little  economic  advantage  to  the 
farm. 

Out  of  the  total  price  paid  for  the  farm  the 
proper  amounts  will  have  to  be  apportioned  to  each 
of  the  above  enumerated  items  and  thus  written  into 
the  deed;  but  none  of  the  apportionments  for  raw 
land,  general  and  special  public  improvements, 
private  improvements  and  initial  overhead  cost 
should  be  in  excess  of  the  amount  recorded  on  the 
books  of  the  assessor  as  the  respective  values  of 
these  several  items,  or  parts,  of  the  maximum  legal 
selling  price  of  any  Settlement  Farm. 

If,  after  entering  the  proper  amounts  paid  for 
raw  land,  public  and  private  improvements,  and 
initial  overhead  cost,  there  still  remain  a  balance  in 
the  total  selling  price  of  the  farm,  it  should  be  di- 
vided between  (1)  excess  payment  for  private  im- 
provements, if  any  amount  is  paid  in  addition  to 


THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY  25 

the  value  recorded  for  private  improvements  by  the 
assessor;  (2)  excess  payment,  if  any,  on  initial 
overhead  cost;  (3)  special  features,  if  any  were 
paid  for.  The  apportionment  between  these  three 
items  should  show  the  amounts  for  each  respect- 
ively which  have  been  mutually  agreed  upon  be- 
tween purchaser  and  seller  and  which  have  passed 
between  them  by  way  of  compensation. 

Reconciling  records  with  the  deeds. — ^At  the  time 
of  sale  of  any  farm  the  recorded  values  on  the  as- 
sessor's books  will  be  as  of  the  last  passed  annual 
assessment  date,  and  subsequent  changes,  if  any,  in 
the  values  of  raw  land  and  public  improvements 
will  have  to  be  estimated  to  date  by  the  assessor. 
Like  subsequent  changes  in  value  of  private  im- 
provements and  initial  overhead  cost  would  have 
to  be  prepared  by  the  owner  and  adjusted  by  the 
assessor.  These  changes  thus  determined  would 
have  to  be  entered  on  the  public  records  as  of  the 
date  of  transfer  of  the  property,  in  order  that  they 
may  be  the  same  on  the  assessor's  books  as  in  the 
deed.  At  the  next  annual  assessment  the  full  legal 
machinerv,  including  the  usual  right  to  appeal  to  a 
Board  of  Equalization,  would  re-establish  the 
values  to  date  in  the  regular  way. 

If  animals,  implements,  supplies,  stocks  of  ma- 
terials, are  sold  with  the  farm,  a  separate  state- 
ment covering  these  items  should  be  filed  with  the 
assessor. 

The  five  checks  on  speculation  enumerated  above 
would  probably  suffice  for  several  years.  In  the 
meantime  a  more  extended  law  providing  adequate 
penalties  may  be  devised  to  stop  virtually  all  spec- 
ulation that  may  then  still  exist  along  these  lines. 

Lightening  work  in  income  tax  report. — All  of 
the  records  required  by  the  plan  would  be  of  value 


26  THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY 

in  connection  with  the  Income  Tax,  and  manipulat- 
ing the  figures  to  avoid  or  decrease  the  amount  of 
the  tax,  or  indirectly  to  pay  the  seller  something 
for  site-value,  would  involve  unprofitable  risk  in 
most  cases.  Furthermore,  keeping  up  these  rec- 
ords would  tend  toward  putting  farms  on  a  busi- 
ness basis. 

Recording  made  easy  by  small  beginning. — At 
first  this  method  of  keeping  account  of  sales  of  Set- 
tlement Farms  may  seem  rather  complicated,  but  in 
the  course  of  three  or  four  years  it  would  be  car- 
ried out  quickly  and  with  comparative  ease.  Since 
it  would  be  used  only  in  connection  with  a  rela- 
tively small  number  of  Settlement  Farms,  the  au- 
thorities would  have  ample  time  to  develop  an  eas- 
ily workable,  detailed  plan,  before  the  increase  in 
the  number  of  these  farms  is  very  great.  In  fact, 
experience  with  Income  Tax  blanks  for  farm  opera- 
tions, as  issued  by  the  Federal  Government  in  1919, 
makes  the  plan  here  suggested  for  assessing  and 
deeding  Settlement  Farms  seem  by  comparison  very 
simple  indeed. 

Good  farmers  and  occupied  farms. — One  effect 
of  establishing  a  maximum  legal  selling  price  for 
the  resale  of  Settlement  Farms  is  that  it  will  become 
unprofitable  to  hold  them  idle,  there  being  prac- 
tically no  possibility  of  advance  in  price  of  the  raw 
land,  while  public  and  private  improvements  ap- 
plying to  the  farms  will  deteriorate  and  lower  in 
value.  Another  advantage  lies  in  the  fact  that  only 
those  individuals  will  buy  settlement  lands  who 
mean  to  make  agriculture,  uncombined  with  pos- 
sible speculative  gains  from  the  resale  of  their  land, 
a  source  of  livelihood.  A  farming  community  de- 
veloped under  the  conditions  here  outlined  is  bound 
lo  be  well  settled  by  earnest  men  and  women;  pro- 


THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY  27 

duction  is  sure  to  be  liberal,  and  the  business  end 
of  farming  will  prosper  better  than  if  the  com- 
munity were  built  up  under  the  present  haphazard 
plan. 

1921 

THIRD    STEP 
(Unlimited  Right  to  Condemn  Private  Land) 

Learning  How  to  Solve  the  Land 
Problem  in  Cities. 

By  1921  the  State  authorities  should  be  given  the 
right  to  condemn  for  any  purpose  whatever  Settle- 
ment Lands  or  other  lands  in  their  vicinity  at  an 
adequate  remuneration.  Such  a  law  would  enable 
the  State  to  acquire  land  within  or  adjacent  to  Set- 
tlement areas  for  urban  purposes  when  occasion  de- 
manded it,  and  this  land  would,  of  course,  be  plat- 
led  according  to  the  best  rules  of  city  planning, 
each  piece  when  resold  by  the  State  being  deeded 
for  adequate  private  urban  use  and  for  the  special 
purpose  for  which  it  was  reserved.  Naturally  such 
urban  Settlement  Lands  would  be  sold  subject  to  a 
maximum  legal  selling  price  and  a  minimum  use, 
and  in  the  end  they  would  be  made  tax-free.  This 
would  all  be  provided  for  as  in  the  case  of  agricul- 
tural Settlement  Lands  (steps  two,  four,  five  and 
six).  By  developing  these  Land  Settlement  towns, 
which  will  certainly  spring  up,  the  State  will  gradu- 
ally learn  by  experience  how  to  frame  laws  in  de- 
tail for  freeing  the  land  from  taxation  in  its  cities, 
new  and  old,  in  a  manner  economically  advan- 
tageous to  the  public.  The  right  to  condemn  land 
for  private  urban  purposes  in  or  adjacent  or  near  to 
Land  Settlement  projects  is,  therefore,  of  vital  im- 
portance. 


28  THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY 

1921—1922. 
FOURTH  STEP. 

(Minimum  Use  of  Settlement  Land). 

Soon  after  the  plan  of  fixing  the  maximum  legal 
selling  price  is  in  regular  operation,  the  State 
should  enact  a  law  providing  for  the  minimum  use 
that  any  privately  owned  parcel  of  Settlement  Land 
may  be  put  to  without  incurring  fines  or  invalidat- 
ing the  owner's  title  to  it.  Because  the  owner  will 
then  no  longer  have  any  assurance  of  a  speculative 
gain  through  increase  in  the  price  of  his  land  he 
will  undoubtedly  regard  himself  as  a  loser  every 
day  he  cannot  or  does  not  use  it  profitably.  For 
this  reason,  the  law  fixing  the  minimum  use  should 
not  be  stringent.  Indeed,  it  should  be  so  sparing 
with  its  penalties  that  an  owner,  who  for  any  rea- 
son wishes  to  sell  or  otherwise  dispose  of  his  farm, 
may  have  ample  time  to  do  so  without  being  com- 
pelled to  suffer  any  material  loss  through  fines,  or 
being  in  the  meantime  obliged  to  put  it  to  greater 
use  than  is  profitable  for  him.  Of  course,  until  the 
present  land  tax  is  discarded,  that  in  itself  will  act 
as  a  more  than  sufficient  penalty  under  the  new 
conditions. 

However,  should  any  owner  neglect  his  land  in 
a  manner  really  detrimental  to  the  public  interest, 
he  will  have  to  be  punished  accordingly.  In  disputed 
cases,  the  question  of  guilt  and  penalty  should  be 
decided  possibly  by  special  land  courts  with  juries 
composed  of  farmers,  who  would  be  in  position  to 
sympathize  better  with  the  supposedly  neglectful 
owner,  if  he  deserved  such  sympathy. 


THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY  29 

1925-1930. 

FIFTH  STEP 

(Introduction  of  Tax  on  Individual  Incomes  De- 
rived from  Settlement  Lands) . 

Necessity  for  land  tax  ended. — Because  land  spec- 
ulation in  Settlement  Farms  will  be  greatly  checked, 
and  because  the  "economic"  rent  of  the  land  in 
these  farms  will  be  largely  neutralized  wherever  the 
preceding  steps  are  well  establishd,  it  will  no  long- 
er be  essential  that  public  funds  be  raised  by  means 
of  taxes  on  agricultural  land  and  its  improvements 
located  within  the  limits  of  Land  Settlement  com- 
munities. When  desired,  such  taxes  may  be  super- 
seded within  the  limits  of  these  Land  Settlements 
by  the  individual  income  tax  on  all  incomes  (in 
excess  of  the  legal  exemption)  derived  from  the 
land.  This  will  constitute  the  "fifth  step"  which 
might  be  taken  some  time  between  1925  and  1930. 
However,  taxes  on  excess-land  holdings  described 
imder  "Step  Six"  must  be  continued. 

Haste  not  important. — ^With  the  first  four  steps 
of  the  coming  land  policy  in  full  operation,  the  ob- 
ject of  immediate  importance,  that  is,  cessation  of 
speculation  in  Settlement^  Lands,  will  largely  have 
been  accomplished,  and  the  fifth  step,  or  the  change 
from  real  estate  taxes  to  the  individual  income  tax, 
in  these  Settlement  commimities  can  be  delayed  a 
reasonable  length  of  time,  as  above  suggested,  with- 
out ultimate  injury  to  the  plan  of  untaxing  the 
land.  It  can  even  be  postponed  until  the  individual 
income  tax  becomes  general  as  the  principal  source 
of  public  revenues  throughout  the  State,  meaning 
State,  county,  district  and  urban  revenues,  as  well 
as  Federal. 


30  THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY 

Making  the  tax  optional. — If,  before  the  income 
tax  becomes  general  as  a  main  source  of  revenue 
for  Stale  and  lesser  political  subdivisions,  these 
communities  care  to  introduce  a  tax  on  the  incomes 
derived  from  land  as  a  substitute  for  all  local  taxes 
on  land  and  improvements,  the  people  will  have  to 
vote  an  amendment  to  the  State  constitution  cover- 
ing this  procedure  in  Settlement  districts.  At  first 
it  may  in  addition  be  necessary  to  provide  for  this 
change  in  taxation  through  a  clause  in  the  deeds 
given  to  the  settler'  by  the  State.  The  law  might 
provide  that  the  citizens  of  any  Land  Settlement 
project,  or  district,  may  vote  to  substitute  a  tax  on 
income  derived  from  land  to  take  the  place  of  ex- 
isting taxes  on  land  and  improvements. 

Grand  aggregate  total  of  the  tax. — Until  the  reg- 
ular income  tax  is  employed  for  State  and  lesser 
purposes  and  is  applied  to  individual  incomes 
throughout  the  State,  the  aggregate  sum  to  be 
raised  in  any  year  for  state,  county  and  district  pur- 
poses within  each  settlement  district  respectively  by 
means  of  the  suggested  income  tax  on  profits  de- 
rived from  the  land,  should,  of  course,  be  an 
amount  as  equitable  as  conditions  will  permit. 
Doubtless  the  most  feasible  amount  would  be  a  sum 
as  nearly  equal  as  possible  to  the  aggregate  total 
of  all  taxes  which  would  be  assessed  in  that  year 
against  land  and  improvements  located  within  the 
Settlement  areas,  provided  taxes  were  to  be  levied 
there  by  the  same  plan  or  method  employed  in  the 
State  at  large.  Naturally,  as  soon  as  the  State  as  a 
whole  abandons  taxes  on  land  (other  than  those  on 
excess-land  holdings)  and  its  improvements,  sub- 
stituting some  other  form  of  assessment,  the  latter 
would  be  made  to  apply  as  well  to  State  Land  Set- 


THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY  31 

tlement  territory,  thus  superseding  whatever  form 
of  income  tax  might  at  the  time  be  current  there. 

Points  on  applying  tax. — For  purposes  of  uni- 
formity as  between  the  dififerent  districts  and  for 
reasons  of  efficiency  and  economy,  any  such  income 
tax  for  local  application  within  the  several  Land 
Settlement  projects  would  have  to  be  assessed  and 
collected  under  the  supervision  of  the  State.  Pend- 
ing the  adoption  of  a  general  state  income  tax,  if  a 
tax  on  incomes  from  farms  were  adopted  in  Land 
Settlement  districts,  farms  held  vacant  unnecessar- 
ily, and  producing  no  incomes,  might  in  certain 
cases  have  to  be  assessed  an  amount  equal  to 
the  average  tax  on  profits  derived  from  similar 
farms  that  are  being  operated.  Also  for  practical 
reasons,  until  the  regular  income  tax  is  applied 
throughout  the  entire  State  to  supersede  taxes  on 
land  (except  excess  holdings)  and  improvements, 
this  local  tax  on  incomes  derived  from  the  farming 
of  Settlement  Land  would  have  to  be  levied  at  a 
uniform  or  so-called  normal  rate  percent,  regardless 
of  the  size  of  income ;  for  it  is  quite  certain  that  any 
surtax,  or  "additional"  tax  involving  higher  rates 
on  the  larger  incomes  would  tend  to  lead  those  ex- 
pecting to  earn  more  liberal  incomes  than  the  aver- 
age to  locate  outside  of  Settlement  Land  districts 
where  their  property  would  for  the  present  at  least 
be  assessed  in  the  old  way. 

Three  good  reasons. — ^There  are  three  reasons  for 
substituting  the  individual  income  tax  for  the  tax 
on  Settlement  Farm  land  and  improvements:  1,  it 
makes  such  land  more  nearly  free;  2,  the  less  the 
farmer's  income  for  any  year,  the  smaller  his  tax; 
3,  it  is  a  beginning  in  Untaxing  the  Consumer. 

Income  tax  versus  land,  tax. — A  partial  analysis 
of  the  income  tax,  to  show  who  pays  it,  is  a  very 


32  THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY 

complex  problem;  nevertheless  I  expect  to  treat  the 
subject  in  another  supplement  as  viewed  from  the 
taxpayers'  angle.  For  the  present  let  it  suffice  to 
say  that  the  difference  to  the  consumer  between  the 
tax  on  individual  incomes  and  that  on  land  is 
fundamental.  This  difference  is  due  largely  not 
only  to  the  normal  part  of  the  income  tax,  but  to  the 
exemptions,  the  surtax,  and  indirectly  the  excess 
profits  tax.  Likewise  it  is  due  in  a  measure  to  the 
fact  that  incomes  are  earned  at  least  partially,  mak- 
ing them  to  this  extent  a  part  of  the  true  cost  of 
production,  and  to  the  furliier  fact  that  the  income 
tax  is  practically  universal  and,  therefore,  more 
general  than  the  land  tax  in  its  direct  application. 
But  the  individual  income  tax  on  incomes  derived 
from  strictly  farming  operations,  as  here  proposed, 
does  not  relieve  the  consumer  as  much  as  will  the 
regular  individual  income  tax.  However,  the  for- 
mer is  a  step  in  advance  of  our  present  mode  of 
taxation,  pending  the  time  when  the  regular  in- 
come tax  becomes  universal  and  a  substitute  for  the 
land  tax  at  least. 

1925-1930. 

SIXTH  STEP. 

(Fixing  Maximum  Size  of  Tax-free  Parcels  of  Land 
and  Amount  of  Taxes  on  Excess  Holdings) . 

This  step  must  be  introduced  simultaneously  with 
the  fifth.  It  fixes  by  law  the  maximum  size  of  tax- 
free  allotments  of  land  to  be  allowed  any  single  oc- 
cupant for  any  particular  purpose  under  given  con- 
ditions, and  it  establishes  by  law  the  progressive 
rates  of  taxation  on  any  available  additional  or 
excess  land  deeded  the  occupant.  The  extent  of 
these  free  allotments,  also  of  the  excess  holdings,  is 


THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY  33 

to  be  governed  by  the  good  of  society  in  general. 
These  various  areas  will  have  to  be  fixed  roughly 
at  first  until  a  system  of  applicable  records,  based 
on  experience,  has  been  devised,  installed  and  de- 
veloped. Deeds  given  by  the  state  for  excess  hold- 
ings will  convey  a  more  limited  ownership  than 
deeds  given  for  tax-free  holdings.  But  the  former 
should  be  assignable  as  well  as  the  latter.  The 
right  to  own  and  use  any  certain  piece  of  land  as 
an  excess  holding  will,  of  course,  depend  not  only 
on  the  payment  of  the  annual  taxes,  but  also  on  the 
demand  and  need  for  such  land  by  other  settlers  as 
a  tax-free  holding.  Furthermore  the  degree  or  in- 
tensity of  use  to  which  an  excess  holding  is  being 
put  will  necessarily  have  to  be  taken  into  account 
before  it  is  reduced  or  altogether  withdrawn  from 
the  excess-land  owner,  and  proper  compensation 
must  be  given  him  for  any  loss  he  may  sustain. 
This  tax  on  excess  holding  can,  of  course,  never  be 
superseded  by  any  other  form  of  taxation,  and  it 
must  be  merely  nominal  in  Settlements  where  an 
excess  of  idle  land  may  prevail.  The  law  must 
protect  the  excess-land  owner  fully  to  assure  him 
of  the  fruits  of  his  labor.  Regulative  laws  for  ex- 
cess as  well  as  tax-free  holdings  can  be  developed 
more  easily  and  more  thoroughly  under  conditions 
as  they  exist  in  Land  Settlements  than  under  any 
other  circumstances. 

Now,  according  to  the  use  to  be  made  of  it,  a  tax- 
free  holding  should  be  as  large  as  a  good  farmer 
can  handle  with  a  specified  number  of  em- 
ployees. As  the  plan  of  determining  the  size  of 
these  allotments  becomes  better  perfected  and 
standardized  the  size  of  his  family  and  other  cir- 
cumstances may  be  taken  into  account  in  fixing  the 
limits  of  such  allotments.     Eventually  productive 


34  THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY 

results  from  year  to  year  must  also  figure  in  de- 
termining the  size  of  diese  allotments. 

The  same  general  principles  regarding  taxation 
must  be  applied  to  land  owned  by  farming  corpora- 
tions, but  to  cover  land  under  such  ownership  the 
law  will  have  to  provide  special  rules  for  deter- 
mining the  area  of  tax-free  holdings  and  for  ascer- 
taining the  rate  of  taxation  on  excess  holdings. 

1920-1930. 

SEVENTH  STEP. 

(Price  Regulation   of  Essential   Agricultural 
Products) . 

Much  of  the  benefit  that  should  accrue  to  the 
farmer  and  to  society  from  the  application  of  the 
six  foregoing  steps  may  be  neutralized  if  selling 
prices  of  essential  agricultural  products  are  not 
established  from  time  to  time  by  the  public  on  a 
basis  fair  to  all  concerned.  This  benefit  will  also  go 
amiss  if  the  middleman  is  not  eliminated  whenever 
he  serves  an  insufficiently  useful  purpose  in  ex- 
change for  the  commission  he  receives.  It  will  be 
an  easy  matter  to  fix  and  regulate  prices  on  es- 
sential agricultural  products  once  the  forward 
movements  in  the  field  of  husbandry,  mentioned 
in  Appendix  Two,  are  well  under  way.  It  is  esti- 
mated that  between  the  years  1920  and  1930  price 
regulation  of  the  most  essential  agricultural  prod- 
ucts can  safely  be  established  throughout  the 
United  States  for  the  benefit  of  both  the  farmer 
and  the  Public.  As  time  goes  on,  this  regulation 
can  be  extended  and  made  more  scientific  and  exact, 
especially  when  agricultural  products  are  sold  more 
and  more  collectively  on  a  state-wide  scale. 


THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY  35 

1930-1980. 

EIGHTH  STEP. 

(Eliminating  the  Items  of  Raw  Land  and  General 
Public  Improvements). 

Artificially  imposed  obstacles. — ^As  stated  in  "Un- 
taxing the  Consumer",  the  Raw  Land  item  of  farms 
should  gradually  he  made  practically  free  of  price. 
One  reason  for  this  is  that  the  young  farmer  of  the 
future,  and  his  wife,  may  start  life  without  arti- 
ficially imposed  obstacles  that  are  or  should  be  for- 
eign to  the  business  of  farming;  for,  without  un- 
hampered agricultural  activity,  race  vitality  of  the 
highest  type  cannot  be  developed  and  maintained. 
This  does  not  mean  that  agriculture  as  a  business 
occupation  should  not  pay  every  just  expense  in- 
cident to  its  operation,  however. 

Free  Farm  Land. 

With  definite  maximum  legal  selling  prices  es- 
tablished for  the  land  of  any  Settlement  Farm, 
meaning  farm  land  as  it  was  when  bought  in  a  rela- 
tively raw  or  undeveloped  condition  by  the  Settle- 
ment Board,  the  State  might  between  1930  and 
1980,  when  it  is  older  and  richer,  annually  purchase, 
say,  a  two  percent  undivided  interest  in  the  Raw 
Land  item  of  each  Settlement  Farm  without  acquir- 
ing any  proprietory  rights  over  the  improvements 
in  or  upon  the  land,  such  as  buildings,  drains,  level- 
ing, enhanced  fertility,  etc.,  or  any  rights  in  the  in- 
come derived  from  it. 

Getting  rid  of  price  of  general  public  improve- 
ments.— In  the  same  manner,  also  beginning  with 
the  year  1930,  the  amount  included  in  the  maxi- 
mum legal  selling  price    of   the  farm  for  general 


36  THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY 

public  improvements  should  be  paid  back  to  the 
farm-owner  by  the  State  in  like  annual  installments. 
In  that  year  the  General  Public  Improvement  item 
might  be  added  to  that  of  Raw  Land.  The  con- 
solidated amount  should  then  be  liquidated  at  a 
uniform  rate  per  annum,  ending  not  later  than  1980. 
After  1930  no  further  tax  payments  made  for  gen- 
eral public  improvements  should  enter  into  the 
maximum  legal  selling  price  of  farms.  The  item 
Special  Public  Improvements,  covering  such  im- 
provements as  have  been  paid  by  special  assess- 
ments on  the  farm,  should  continue  to  be  a  part  of 
the  maximum  legal  selling  price  of  the  farm. 

Annual  reduction  in  price  of  farm. — Then  the 
maximum  legal  selling  price  of  the  Raw  Land  item, 
as  thus  augmented  by  the  General  Public  Improve- 
ment item  of  each  farm,  will  be  reduced  just  so 
much  each  year  between  seller  and  purchaser.  In 
time  there  would  remain  no  part  of  the  selling  price 
of  the  farm  to  cover  raw  land  or  appurtenant  gen- 
eral public  improvements.  Settlement  farms  sold 
by  the  Board  after  1930  will  have  to  be  given 
slightly  different  treatment  in  regard  to  the  two 
per  cent  annual  refund.  In  these  cases  their  selling 
price  should  be  discoimted  or  rebated  in  an  amount 
equal  to  two  per  cent  per  annum  between  1930  and 
the  year  of  sale,  on  the  combined  total  of  the  raw 
land  and  the  general  public  improvement  items  of 
the  farm.  This  discount  should  be  regarded  as  cov- 
ering just  so  many  accumulated  annual  refund  in- 
stallments of  the  past,  but  paid  now  by  the  State  in 
one  lump  sum,  i.  e.,  at  time  of  sale  to  the  settler. 
As  the  yearly  refund  installments  are  to  be  met  by 
the  State,  so  will  it  have  to  bear  this  accumulated 
discount.  This  will  be  necessary,  in  order  that  the 
last  of  the  two  per  cent  refund  installments  may  be 


THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY  37 

paid  off  to  the  land  owner  on  all  farms  in  the  same 
year,  namely,  1980. 

Private  ownership  still.  —  Notwithstanding  the 
full  payment  of  these  refund  installments  and  the 
discoimt  just  referred  to,  a  man's  ownership  in  his 
farm  will  continue  indefinitely,  subject  to  condi- 
tions prescribed  by  law,  and,  when  he  or  his  heirs 
or  other  successors  sell  out,  he  or  they  will  be  en- 
titled to  receive  payment  only  for  the  value  of  pri- 
vate improvements  in  and  upon  the  land,  together 
with  the  proportional  part  of  special  public  im- 
provements appurtaining  to  it,  growing  crops  and 
initial  overhead  cost.  In  some  cases  of  sale  to  pri- 
vate parties  he  may  be  remunerated  for  the  value 
of  special  features  and  for  excess  on  private  Im- 
provements and  on  initial  overhead  cost, — pro- 
vided the  purchaser  be  willing  to  pay  so  much. 
Then  farm  land  would  be  as  free  as  it  can  be 
made,  and  in  the  meantime,  once  the  State  Land 
Settlement  Board  can  supply  all  the  new  farms  for 
which  there  is  any  demand,  agricultural  land  will 
b©  comparatively  free. 

1930-1950. 

NINTH  STEP. 

(Placing  All  Agricultural  Land  under  the  Farm 
Settlement  Plan). 

The  eight  preceding  steps  apply  to  State  Settle- 
ment farm  lands,  also  in  a  suitably  modified  way 
to  urban  land  connected  with  the  Settlements,  pro- 
vided any  such  urban  centers  develop,  as  suggested 
under  the  Third  Step. 

It  will  not  be  many  years  before  the  State  Settle- 
ment Board  will  be  given  permanent  control  over 

144  3 :";  2 


38  THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY 

all  settlement  lands,  and  I  foresee  conditions  which 
after  1930  will  lead  owners  of  agricultural  land 
located  outside  of  these  settlements  to  request  that 
their  property  he  placed  under  the  jurisdiction  of 
the  Board  and  subjected  to  regulations  identical 
with  those  governing  land  in  the  State  Settlements. 
By  1950  practically  all  farm  lands  of  the  state, 
both  in  and  outside  of  the  settlements,  will  be  under 
supervision  of  the  State  Land  Settlement  Board  and 
will  be  governed  through  the  best  land  laws  it  is 
possible  to  devise.  In  relatively  few  cases  a  modi- 
fied type  of  condemnation  or  other  legal  proceed- 
ings will  be  required  to  complete  the  work,  giving 
us  a  new  single  land  policy  based  on  free  land,  that 
is,  untaxed  land. 

1920-1950 

THE  MOST  IMPORTANT  STEP. 

(A  Land  Problem  Commission). 

Of  course,  instead  of  taking  the  steps  numbered 
two  to  nine  inclusive,  it  would  be  necessary  only 
to  create  a  Land  Problem  Commission,  composed 
of  men  honest,  straightforward,  well  versed  in  so- 
cial science  and  professionally  the  best  in  their  train- 
ing the  country  can  produce.  Such  a  body  of  men 
will  properly  plan  all  necessary  steps  and  by  first 
creating  an  intelligent,  powerful  public  opinion  in 
favor  of  their  plans  they  will  see  that  these  steps 
are  taken.  In  fact,  a  wise  selection  of  the  members 
of  this  Commission  will  be  by  far  the  most  impor- 
tant factor  in  solving  the  land  question.  With  ade- 
quate working  equipment  and  sufficient  means, 
such  a  commission  could  survey  the  land  problem 
of  the  world  at  large  and  thus  acquire  all  the  ex- 


THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY  39 

perience  obtainable  through  observation  and  study. 
In  this  way  many  false  steps  will  be  saved  and 
progress  will  be  more  quickly  and  economically  ef- 
fected. With  the  co-operation  of  the  various  State 
Land  Settlement  Boards  that  are  bound  to  be  in- 
augurated, such  a  Commission  would  naturally  de- 
velop a  land  policy  that  would  be  practicable  in  its 
main  features  as  soon  as  formulated.  The  great 
question  in  this  connection  is:  what  man  or  body 
of  men,  with  the  authority  to  appoint  such  a  com- 
mission, has  both  the  capacity  to  do  so  and  the 
political  power  to  keep  their  appointees  in  office, 
protecting  them  against  excessive  harrassment? 

1920-1950 
CONTEMPORARY  STEPS. 

(Obtaining  Public  Control  over  Our  Other  Natural 

Resources) . 
The  General  Survey. 

A  sur\'ey  of  all  our  other  natural  resources  and 
the  activities  closely  connected  with  them  should  be 
started  immediately,  and  continued  contemporane- 
ously with  the  preceding  steps  by  a  special  Com- 
mission. The  later  should  also  develop  a  plan  or 
program  that  will  gradually  place  all  natural  re- 
sources by  1950  or  1960  in  the  care  of  the  Public 
for  public  operation.  This  survey  would  neces- 
sarily prescribe  what  the  public  should  do  within 
a  very  few  years  to  prepare  a  sufficient  number 
of  public  servants  adequately  to  operate  our  electric 
power  plants  and  distributing  systems;  also  what 
it  should  do  through  secondary  schools  and  colleges 
to  make  itself  highly  fit  in  proper  time  to  carry  on 
public  ownership  and  operation  of  all  natural  re- 
sources. 


40  THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY 

The  economic  program  covering  these  natural  re- 
sources should  allow  at  least  four  or  five  years 
for  the  survey  and  formulation  of  a  clear  and  spe- 
cific outline  plan  extending  thirty  to  forty  years 
into  the  future,  A  conservative  time  schedule  for 
the  accomplishment  of  such  steps  as  the  Commis- 
sion may  outline  for  carrying  out  the  entire  plan 
should  be  adopted  and  followed  as  closely  as  prac- 
ticable. 

Water  Power  the  Next  to  Be  Socialized. 

The  ownership  and  operation  of  water  power 
should  be  as  completely  socialized  as  is  domestic 
water.  The  survey  covering  this  item  need  not  re- 
quire over  two  years,  at  which  time  active  steps 
should  be  taken  to  accomplish  public  ownership  of 
all  of  it  within  two  decades.  Beginning  in  two 
years,  private  power  plants,  one  after  another, 
should  be  taken  over  by  our  cities  as  rapidly  as  the 
political  capacity  of  the  public  is  sufficiently  de- 
veloped to  permit  of  their  operation  by  the  people, 
and  new  plants  should  be  built  by  the  Public  as  re- 
quired. It  will  be  found  that  as  soon  as  public 
ownership  of  water  power  is  irrevocably  estab- 
lished, our  colleges,  and  business  interests  espe- 
cially, will  strive  to  make  its  operation  more  suc- 
cessful than  public  ownership  of  domestic  water  is 
at  present.  Even  our  most  conservative  politicians 
will  see  the  desirability  of  furthering  the  interests 
of  such  a  policy.  One  reason  for  this  is  that  no 
private  interest  in  particular  will  any  longer  profit 
directly  by  the  power  business,  and  all  interests, 
large  and  small,  will  have  use  for  electric  power, 
will  want  it  at  the  lowest  reasonable  rate  and  will 
demand  the  best  service. 


THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY  41 

Water  power  should  be  the  next  natural  resource 
acquired  and  operated  by  the  public.  Because  it  is 
still  to  a  great  extent  in  possession  of  the  govern- 
ment, it  would  require  the  least  outlay  of  money  to 
"recapture"  what  private  interests  have  already 
acquired,  and  it  is  the  easiest  of  all,  except  domestic 
water,  to  operate,  making  it  particularly  adaptable 
to  public  ownership.  Again,  it  is  destined  to  be 
the  most  fundamental  and  important  of  all  natural 
resources,  barring,  of  course,  domestic  water  and 
rural  and  urban  land. 

Coal  and  Iron  Mines. 

The  plan  for  general  public  ownership  and  op- 
eration of  coal  mines  by  qualified  cities  and  states 
should  provide  for  an  actual  beginning  within  five 
years  in  operating  a  few  on  a  moderate  scale  in 
some  favorable  locality,  and  for  accomplishing 
their  acquisition  throughout  the  nation  in  twenty- 
five  years,  unless  conditions  warrant  more  rapid 
progress.  In  the  same  manner,  the  Public  should 
gradually  control  and  produce  all  the  iron  ore  and 
all  other  common  metals  of  the  country  within 
thirty  or  forty  years.  Notwithstanding  some  shirk- 
ing and  inefficiency  within  public  ownership  en- 
terprises, and  the  scheming  opposition  of  certain 
corporation  interests,  this  will  and  must  be  done 
until  public  ownership  of  our  vital  natural  re- 
sources is  an  accomplished  fact.  It  would  be  a  great 
gain  for  both  Business  and  the  Public  if  the  former 
were  to  lend  substantial  aid  in  qualifying  the  Pub- 
lic to  manage  these  resources  successfully. 

A  Time  Schedule  for  Each  Natural  Resource. 

The  plans  for  carrying  out  the  scheme  must  in 
general  terms  conservatively  prescribe  how  much 


42  THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY 

is  to  be  completed  by  the  end,  say,  of  each  five- 
year  period,  so  that  those  most  interested  may 
know  whether  progress  is  keeping  up  with  the 
time  schedule.  If  the  schedule  is  approximately 
carried  out,  it  will  insure  enthusiastic  support  of 
the  public;  for  it  will  show  that  the  authorities  are 
bent  on  fulfilling  their  promises,  to  meet  which  will 
mean. — 1,  that  the  people  will  be  supplied  with 
natural  resources,  such  as  water,  power,  coal,  com- 
mon ores,  etc.,  at  cost ;  i.  e.,  the  full  cost  of  produc- 
tion without  any  price  being  added  for  the  unde- 
veloped resources  in  their  natural  state;  2,  that  un- 
necessary private  accumulation  of  wealth  out  of 
business  that  the  Public  is  fully  capable  of  carry- 
ing on  for  itself  will  be  prevented;  3,  that  certain 
private  "business"  will  be  eliminated  from  politics; 
4,  that  through  experience  gained  in  the  operation 
of  public  utilities,  the  people  will  become  better 
qualified  to  conduct  public  business  generally, — for 
it  has  been  found  that  a  certain  amount  of  stand- 
ardized utility  business  conducted  by  a  community 
is  in  time  likely  to  round  out  and  improve  the  en- 
tire public  service  of  that  community;  5,  that  free 
opportunity  will  be  given  those  to  do  so  who  wish  to 
enlighten  themselves  in  full  detail  regarding  the 
operation  of  industrial  business.  The  public- 
owned  utility  will  give  this  opportunity  of  enlight- 
enment, from  which  the  people  as  a  body  have 
been  excluded  heretofore. 


THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY  43 

TIME  TABLE  CONDENSED 

1919 

THE  FIRST  STEP 

(Farm  Land  Settlement). 

The  State  of  California  through  its  Land  Settle- 
ment Board  is  buying,  platting  and  improving  ag- 
ricultural land  and  selling  it  to  actual  settlers.  The 
Board  and  other  governmental  agencies  are  dis- 
seminating agricultural  knowledge  and  are  in  many 
other  ways  improving  rural  conditions,  to  insure 
the  success  of  colonization.  This  will  probably  be 
continued  indefinitely.  The  State  Land  Settlement 
Board  of  California  has  now  (1919)  taken  the  first 
decisive  step  towards  the  Coming  Land  Policy,  i.  e., 
it  has  undertaken  land  settlement  work  in  agricul- 
tural districts  under  a  thorough  plan  and  on  an  ex- 
tensive scale  (see  page  6). 

1921 

THE  SECOND  STEP. 

(Determining  Maximum  Legal  Selling  Prices). 

The  plan  of  establishing  a  maximum  legal  sell- 
ing price  for  the  raw  land  involved  in  the  sale  of 
Settlement  Farms  should  be  put  into  practice  not 
later  than  1921,  the  object  being  to  check,  if  not  to 
stop,  speculation  in  settlement  land,  or  rather  in  its 
location.  An  appropriate  clause  in  the  deed  from 
the  State  might  suffice  to  begin  with.  Before  it  is 
practicable  to  do  this,  however,  accounting  meth- 
ods or  plans  must  be  prepared  for  the  assessor,  to 
assist  him  in  keeping  the  correct  cost  records  of 


44  THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY 

these  various  properties  in  conjunction  with  his  as- 
sessment records.  The  selling  price  of  Settlement 
Farms  purchased  before  this  provision  is  put  into 
effect  would,  of  course,  have  no  maximum  legal 
limit,  except  in  cases  where  the  owners  voluntarily 
placed  their  property  under  the  law  governing  this 
maximum  limit.     (See  page  6). 

1921 

THE  THIRD  STEP. 

(State  Authorities  to  Be  Given  Right  to  Condemn 

Settlement  Land  and  Land  Adjacent  to  It 

for  Urban  Purposes). 

The  Farm  Settlement  Board  should  be  enabled 
to  enlarge  any  settlement  town  that  may  develop, 
or  to  start  a  new  one  on  the  special  lines  already 
referred  to,  by  making  use  of  land  acquired  for 
the  purpose  through  condemnation  proceedings  or 
otherwise,  either  within  the  Settlement  district  or 
adjacent  to  or  near  it.  This  law  should  not  be 
enacted  later  than  1921.     (See  page  27). 

1921-1922 

THE  FOURTH  STEP 

(A  Provision  for  Minimum  Use  of  Settlement 
Land). 

A  law  covering  minimum  use  of  Settlement 
Farms  should  be  passed  not  later  than  1922  and 
put  into  force  within  one  year  thereafter.  So  long 
as  there  is  plenty  of  good  agricultural  land  in  the 
State,  this  would  be  a  simple  law  to  frame  and  an 
easy  one  to  apply.     (See  page  28). 


THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY  45 

1925-1930 
THE  FIFTH  STEP. 

(Introducing  the  Tax  on  Income  Derived  from 
Land  in  State  Land  Settlement  Districts.) 
This  step  has  its  advantages  and  may  be  intro- 
duced some  time  between  1925  and  1930,  unless 
at  an  earlier  date  the  State  as  a  whole  adopts  the 
income  or  any  other  tax  to  supersede  the  tax  on 
land  and  improvements,  as  the  principal  source  of 
public  funds.  It  does  not  seem  likely,  however, 
that  this  will  take  place  so  soon.     (See  page  29) . 

1925-1930 

THE  SIXTH  STEP. 

(Fixing  Maximiun  Sizes  of  Tax-free  Parcels   of 
Land  in  Farm  Land  Settlement  Projects  and 
Determining  the  Various  Rates  of  Assess- 
ment to  Be  levied  on  Excess  Holdings.) 
This  proposition  must  be  undertaken  simultane- 
ously with  the  Fourth  Step.  The  Fifth  and  part  of 
the  Sixth  step  form  a  unit  in  the  ultimate  efforts  to 
make  farm  lands  free  and  place  the  farmer  in  a 
position  of  greater  safety.    (See  page  32.) 

1920-1930 
SEVENTH  STEP 

(Regulation  of  Prices  of  Leading  Agricultural 
Products.) 
This  can  be  done  gradually,  but  only  as  the  busi- 
ness of  agriculture  becomes  better  standardized 
and  collective  selling  of  farm  products  becomes 
more  common.  The  greatest  activity  along  this  line 
could  profitably  take  place  between  1920  and  1930. 
(See  page  34. 


46  THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY 

1930-1980 

EIGHTH  STEP 

(Elimination  of  the  Value  of  Raw  Land  and  of 

General  Public  Improvements  from  the  Price 

of  State  Land  Settlement  Farms.) 

The  idea  is  to  have  the  State  as  a  whole,  be- 
tween the  years  1930  and  1980,  gradually  reim- 
burse the  owner  of  such  land  by  returning  an- 
nually at  least  two  per  cent  of  the  principal  sum 
paid  by  him  for  the  bare  land.  After  each  such 
annual  rebate  of  two  percent  on  the  original  price 
of  the  raw  land  is  refunded  to  whomsoever  may  at 
the  time  own  the  farm,  the  maximum  legal  selling 
price  of  this  land  will  be  reduced  in  like  amount, 
so  that  in  fifty  years  there  will  be  left  no  part  of 
the  selling  price  of  the  property  that  applies  to  raw 
land. 

In  theory  and  quite  generally  in  practice  each 
successive  owner  will  then  have  been  fully  reim- 
bursed for  the  amount  he  himself  paid  on  the  raw 
land  item  of  his  farm;  for  each  succeeding  owner 
pays  his  predecessor  an  amount  for  the  raw  land 
that  equals  the  sum  of  the  two  per  cent  install- 
ments still  to  be  paid  by  the  State.  The  interest 
paid  on  deferred  installments  of  the  purchase  price 
will  have  to  be  regarded  as  rent  for  the  use  of  the 
land  until  such  interest  terminates  forever  through 
the  last  two  percent  installment,  and  by  1980  the 
bare  land  will  no  longer  figure  in  the  maximum 
legal  selling  price  of  Settlement  Farms. 

Likewise  between  1930  and  1980  the  value  of 
General  Public  Improvements  should  also  be  elim- 
inated gradually  from  the  maximum  legal  selling 


THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY  47 

price  according  to  the  method  suggested  for  the 
item  Raw  Land. 

By  1930  land  will  be  comparatively  free,  and 
by  1980  it  will  be  as  free  as  it  can  be  made,  pro- 
vided rural  planing  has  been  reasonably  developed. 
(See  page  35.) 

1930-1950 

NINTH  STEP. 

(Incorporating  Practically  All  Agricultural  Com- 
munities under  the  State  Land  Settlement 
Scheme.) 

Every  reasonable  encouragement  should  be  given 
owners  whose  farms  are  not  under  control  of  the 
State  Farm  Settlement  Board  to  place  their  farms 
under  its  jurisdiction,  or  control,  subject  to  the 
same  terms  and  conditions  (except  possibly  the 
price  of  the  Raw  Land  item)  as  the  farms  which 
were  originally  sold  by  the  Board.  By  1950  this 
control  ought,  if  possible,  to  be  made  compulsory 
if  the  desired  result  has  not  already  been  volun- 
tarily accomplished  by  the  land  owners.  (See 
page  37.) 

1920-1950 

THE  MOST  IMPORTANT  STEP. 

(The  Creation  of  a  "National  Land  Problem 
Commission".) 

This  Commission  is  to  consist  of  the  best  men 
available,  the  idea  being  to  establish  it  as  soon  as 
possible  and  maintain  it  as  long  as  necessary. 
(See  page  38.) 


48  THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY 

1920-1950 
CONTEMPORARY  STEPS. 

(A  Series  of  Steps  Equivalent  to  the  Ten  Foregoing 
Applied  to  All  Other  Natural  Resources.) 

These  steps,  applied  to  Natural  Resources,  should 
be  based  on  carefully  made  plans  and  should  be 
prearranged  on  a  time  schedule,  the  object  being  to 
place  the  Public  by  1950  or  1960  in  actual  owner- 
ship and  operation  of  all  water  power,  all  mines  of 
ordinary  mineral  products,  all  oil  wells  and  all 
large  forest  resources.    (See  page  39.) 


The  Possibility  of  Carrying 
Out  the  Foregoing. 

When  we  carefully  consider  what  progress  has 
been  made  in  knowledge  and  organization  the 
world  over  in  the  lines  of  industry,  business  and 
government  during  the  past  half  century,  and  the 
momentum  that  has  developed  up  to  the  present 
time,  what  has  been  suggested  here  seems  possible, 
and,  if  we  can  select  especially  qualified,  public- 
spirited  men  and  keep  them  at  making  plans  for 
actual  use  covering  such  important  steps  as  these 
for  the  nation,  a  great  deal  more  will  be  accom- 
plished successfully  in  a  shorter  time  and  without 
any  great  number  of  retarding  social  upheavals. 
But  who  is  able  to  devise  the  system  that  will  re- 
sult in  the  appointment  of  these  men?  This  ques- 
tion emphasizes  the  coimtry's  great  need  of  a  few 
really  profound  moral  and  political  leaders  pos- 
sessed of  deep  experience  and  wisdom, — leaders  in 


THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY  49 

the  Senate  and  House  of  Representatives  who  will 
seek  a  practical  way  out  of  our  present  dan- 
gerous economic  conditions;  leaders  who  can  and 
will  bravely  combat  any  powers  that  attempt  to 
mislead  the  Public  against  its  own  interests;  lead- 
ers who  can  hold  out  in  this  struggle  imtil  the  peo- 
ple themselves  are  convinced  that  the  methods  they 
propose  are  sincere  and  wise,  and  that  they  should 
be  followed;  leaders  that  can  enlist  the  aid  of  the 
most  able  business  men  and  labor  representatives 
whose  imderstanding  of  social  questions  is  broad 
and  thorough.  We  all  know  that  often  before  a  need 
of  this  kind  becomes  overwhelming  the  right  men 
are  developed.  There  are  indications  of  this  taking 
place  in  Congress  at  present.  Such  men  will 
doubtless  bring  about  the  right  system  for  the  oc- 
casion. If  this  happens  we  may  look  for  an  era  of 
great  political  and  economic  progress,  particularly 
in  our  land  problem. 


50  THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY 


APPENDIX  ONE 

Since  beginning  the  present  supplement,  it  has 
occurred  to  me  that  some  readers  might  wonder 
why  I  have  undertaken  to  write  on  the  subject.  I 
feel  that  my  experience,  the  more  outstanding  ap- 
plicable features  of  which  are  outlined  below,  has 
given  me  a  familiarity  with  the  citizen  land-owner's 
side  of  tlie  problems  covering  rent,  taxes,  farm 
land,  city  land,  prices  of  commodities  and  related 
questions.     For  instance: 

I  finished  my  freshman  year  in  a  state  agricul- 
tural college  in  the  early  eighties,  but  was  required 
elsewhere  and,  therefore,  had  to  leave  college.  Pre- 
vious to  this  I  was  engaged  for  five  years  in  a 
small,  but  lively,  retail  business  and,  on  returning 
home,  again  took  up  the  work.  I  had  a  personal  in- 
terest in  this  store  from  its  incipiency  until  it  wais 
sold  out.  During  this  period  (twelve  years)  I  had 
the  usual  experience  with  a  landlord  that  others 
undergo — increase  in  rents,  renewal  of  lease,  addi- 
tional space,  etc.  For  fifteen  years  I  held  a  half 
interest  in  a  manufacturing  plant  from  its  begin- 
ning until  after  it  had  developed  into  a  thriving 
business  and  had  become  a  well  equipped  factory. 
This  experience,  of  course,  covered  the  selection 
and  purchase  of  an  industrial  site,  the  meeting  and 
adjusting  of  tax  assessments  on  it  and  on  the  busi- 
ness, and  a  study  of  the  effect  of  price  changes  on 
consumption  and  on  the  safety  or  security  of  the 
business. 

Needing  a  radical  change,  I  bought  forty  acres 
of  rough  land  in  the  East  and  personally  attended 


THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY  51 

to  all  details  of  planning  and  construction  of  dwell- 
ing, work  shop,  animal  stalls,  barn,  root  cellar, 
sewerage,  drainage  tiling,  well  drilling,  etc.  I  then 
moved  to  Southern  California,  leaving  the  property 
in  the  care  of  a  manager,  to  be  developed  into  a 
small  model  farm  and  orchard;  but  I  still  kept  a 
detailed  account  of  the  agricultural  and  other  ex- 
penses connected  with  it.  After  holding  it  for  fif- 
teen years,  I  sold  it. 

During  a  period  of  seventeen  years  I  paid  a  man- 
ager for  developing  twenty  acres  of  raw  land  into 
an  English  walnut  grove  of  choice,  full-bearing 
trees,  and  the  detailed  account  of  this  property  I 
carefully  interpreted  as  part  of  my  study  of  wal- 
nut growing  and  selling. 

For  ten  years  or  more  I  held  a  half  interest  in 
three  other  walnut  groves,  three  orange  ranches  and 
one  lemon  ranch.  These  places  were  developed  and 
operated  by  a  manager,  until  sold.  For  a  period  of 
five  years  I  had  a  half  interest  in  a  grain  ranch, 
and  also  owned  a  half  interest  in  several  thousand 
acres  of  grazing  land,  renting  it  out.  I  now  own  a 
half  interest  in  two  hundred  acres  of  fine  farm 
land  under  cultivation  on  experimental  lines. 

I  have  owned  a  half  interest  in  a  large  villa 
tract  and  several  hundred  acres  of  beach  resort 
property.  For  about  seventeen  years  I  have  held 
a  half  interest  in  both  centrally  located  and  out- 
lying retail  business  property,  mostly  improved,  as 
well  as  a  half  interest  in  developed  warehouse 
property.  My  investments  and  undertakings  proved 
moderately  profitable  as  a  whole. 

For  two  years  I  was  responsible  for  and  pre- 
pared municipal  budgets  and  closely  observed  the 
preparation  of  tax  levies  to  cover  them  in  a  city  of 
forty  thousand.    At  the  same  time  I  wrote  several 


52  THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY 

tax  articles,  based  on  the  experience  involved  dur- 
ing this  period.  One  of  these  appeared  in  the  an- 
nual proceedings  of  a  state  league  of  municipali- 
ties and  one  in  the  annual  proceedings  of  a  national 
association.  For  more  than  six  months  much  of  my 
time  was  spent  in  appraising  and  effecting  the  pur- 
chase by  a  municipality  of  a  domestic  water  plant 
worth  over  a  million  dollars.  Later  I  spent  about 
a  month  in  reviewing  the  inventory,  and  consoli- 
dated and  re-analyzed  six  years'  accounts,  of  a  mu- 
nicipal electric  light  plant  worth  over  seven  hun- 
dred thousand  dollars.  I  have  also  been  a  member 
of  two  farmers'  cooperative  marketing  associa- 
tions. 

In  1907  and  subsequently  I  was  so  situated  that 
I  was  enabled  to  observe  Japanese  farm  laborers  at 
close  range  and  noticed  particularly  their  general 
efficiency  and  their  capacity  for  physical  work. 
Aware  of  the  rapid  exodus  of  white  men  from 
farms  to  cities,  and  understanding  the  powerful 
economic  and  social  reasons  for  this  movement  and 
the  difficulties  in  the  way  of  overcoming  them,  I 
could  not  fail  to  see  racial  troubles  ahead  that 
would  develop  into  a  Japanese  question  for  the 
state  of  California.  Her  land  problem  is  insep- 
arable from  our  Japanese  question.  In  fact  the 
latter  is  for  the  present  the  most  serious  feature  of 
her  land  problem,  as  the  Japanese  excel  not  only 
in  physical  endurance  but  in  farm  management. 

To  show  that  I  gave  or  tried  to  give  the  subject 
some  orderly  thought,  I  may  say  that  I  wrote  sev- 
eral articles  on  the  subject,  one  of  which  was  pub- 
lished in  the  Twentieth  Century  Magazine  of  Bos- 
ton in  June,  1910,  and  the  other  in  the  Pacific  Out- 
look of  Los  Angeles,  in  July,  1913. 


THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY  53 

My  observations  lead  me  to  believe  that  a  wise 
and  very  comprehensive  land  policy  will  turn  the 
white  tide  back  to  the  farms.  It  will  give  us  living 
conditions  on  the  farms  that  will  permit  white 
farmers  to  render  good  and  ample  economic  service 
to  the  public  and  still  allow  them  sufficient  per- 
sonal leisure  to  develop  a  high  class  of  citizenship 
which  is  essential  to  the  upbuilding  of  a  good 
Democracy.  With  the  general  situation  thus  modi- 
fied the  Japanese  question  will  gradually  become 
less  serious. 

In  all  of  these  and  other  enterprises  my  position 
usually  made  it  necessary  for  me  to  keep  informed 
in  detail  on  land  prices,  rent  rates,  taxes  and  prices 
of  commodities.  My  experience,  therefore,  al- 
though not  every  extensive,  has  given  me  a  good 
opportunity  to  acquire  the  citizen  land-owners* 
point  of  view  on  these  problems,  so  far  as  they 
apply  to  Southern  California  where  I  have  lived 
for  the  past  twenty  years.  The  limitations  of  my 
experience  convince  me  that  any  man,  to  become  an 
authority  in  this  line,  must  study  the  best  books  on 
agricultural  business  development  and  on  land  and 
other  forms  of  taxation.  He  must  also  investigate 
similar  problems  which  may  be  in  existence  in 
other  parts  of  the  world.  To  do  this  thoroughly 
requires  long  training  as  a  student  and  an  inves- 
tigator, which  I  am  neither  in  position  nor  condition 
to  acquire.  However,  this  supplement  is  to  be  re- 
garded as  a  ramified  question,  based  on  a  some- 
what varied,  practical  experience,  and  put  to  the 
trained  economist.  It  is  written  for  the  purpose  of 
clearing  points  that  greatly  perplex  a  large  num- 
ber of  citizens.  But,  to  get  the  full  import  of  the 
question  presented,  it  is  necessary  to  read  my  small 
book,  "Untaxing  the  Consumer". 


54  THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY 


APPENDIX  TWO. 

That  part  of  pages  62,  63  and  64  of  Untaxing  the 
Consumer,  referred  to  on  page  4,  is  here  quoted: 

"Equalizing  Economic  Opportunity 
in  Agriculture. 

"Certain  things  can  be  done  toward  equalizing 
and  making  more  readily  comparable  the  useful- 
ness, or  value,  of  different  parcels  of  agricultural 
land,  at  the  same  time  increasing  their  productive- 
ness and  availability.  In  urban  conununities  City 
Planning  can  be  utilized  to  improve  and  equalize 
the  usefulness,  or  value,  of  business,  industrial  or 
residential  sites  respectively.  The  corresponding 
measure  of  Rural  Planning  can  with  like  facility  be 
used  to  equalize  values  of  agricultural  land. 

"For  reasons  of  necessity  and  practicability  farm- 
ing lands  will  probably  be  acted  upon  first.  In- 
deed, a  good  start  has  already  been  made  and,  as 
soon  as  the  social  mind  turns  its  special  attention 
to  promoting  the  land  and  tax  problems  for  the 
general  good,  steps  will  be  systematically  taken  to 
equalize  the  worth  of  land  according  to  its  classi- 
fication, so  as  not  merely  to  realize  immediate  re- 
sults, but  gradually  to  equalize  economic  oppor- 
tunity and  to  better  standardize  or  socialize  what- 
ever agricultural  production  is  essential  to  life. 

"In  a  society  as  complex  as  it  is  today  it  is  an 
impossibility  for  any  individual  to  do  any  part  of 
this  for  himself,  and  there  is  no  other  way  to  reach 
economic  equity  in  any  field  than  by  collective  ac- 
tion, which  means  ultimately  governmental  action. 
In  different  parts  of  the  country  there  are  already 


THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY  55 

started  or  under  contemplation  plans  to  effect  im- 
provement in  the  productive  or  economic  value  of 
farms,  incidentally  making  them  more  uniform  in 
value.    Some  of  these  steps  are: — 

**I.  Government  distribution  of  practical  and 
scientific  agricultural  knowledge. 

"2.  Government  distribution  of  business  knowl- 
edge applicable  to  farming. 

"3.  Co-operation  in  the  ownership  and  use  of 
such  things  as  public  irrigating  sys- 
tems, jointly  operated  farming  machin- 
ery, etc. 

"4.  Co-operation  in  marketing  through  state 
departments  or  mutual  marketing  asso- 
ciations. 

"5.  Co-operative  storage — grain  elevators,  cold 
storage,  etc. 

"6.  Co-operation  in  the  buying  and  manufac- 
turing of  fertilizers. 

"7.     Farm  Loan  Banks,  or  "rural  credits". 

**8.     State  Land  Settlement  systems. 

"9.  Transportation  of  farm  products  by  Par- 
cels Post,  motor  truck  lines  owned,  co- 
operatively or  by  the  public  and,  later, 
by  government-owned  railroads.  Gov- 
ernment freight  rates  at  that  time  will 
probably  be  partially  equalized,  in  or- 
der that  the  cost  of  shipping  to  market 
may  be  as  nearly  imiform  as  practicable 
for  all  farmers  in  the  same  marketing 
district. 
"10.  Extension  of  good  roads.  Such  roads  re- 
duce the  mileage  cost  of  hauling  and 
consequently  tend  to  equalize  the  cost 


56  THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY 

of  transportation  by  private  means, 
making  the  value  of  land  more  nearly 
miiform. 

"11.  Rapid  increase  in  the  number  of  secondary 
schools  in  rural  districts,  offering  good 
agricultural  courses. 

"12.  Continued  advance  in  agricultural  college 
courses. 

"13.     University  extension  work. 

"14.  A  system  of  reporting  local,  as  well  as 
general,  prospective  crop  emd  market 
conditions.  This  will  doubtless  soon  be 
inaugurated,  in  order  that  over-pro- 
duction and  under-production  may  be 
moderated  and  prices  steadied. 

"15.  Great  extension  and  improvement  of  the 
present  "farm  adviser"  system,  operat- 
ed in  connection  with  universities. 
Through  this  the  farmer  is  advanced 
in  professional  and  business  knowledge 
relating  to  agriculture.  The  purpose  in 
part  is  to  inform  and  aid  him  regard- 
ing: a,  the  agricultural  value  of  land 
he  purchases  from  the  State  Settlement 
Board,  and  the  uses  to  which  it  can  be 
put  most  profitably;  b,  what  the  crop 
requirements  are  likely  to  be  for  the 
following  season  (in  this  connection  the 
farmer  will  also  be  given  such  infor- 
mation as  will  enable  him  to  draw  his 
own  conclusions  in  regard  to  crop  con- 
ditions) ;  c,  the  latest  discoveries  con- 
cerning the  care  of  the  crops  a  farmer 
has  planted ;  d,  the  latest  ways  of  keep- 
ing records  covering  the  results  of  his 


THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY  57 

work,  in  order  that  the  farmer  may  de- 
termine the  value  of  his  efforts  and 
strive  for  better  farming  methods;  e, 
the  introduction  of  collective  produc- 
tion to  its  practical  limit;  f,  co-opera- 
tive marketing  associations. 

**Through  Farm  Advisers  much  will  be  done  to 
increase  the  efficiency  of  agriculturists,  to  advance 
farming  as  a  profession,  to  stabilize  and  otherwise 
improve  farming  as  a  business, — all  of  which  will 
tend  toward  equalizing  economic  opportunity  in 
farming  and  the  intrinsic  worth  of  land  for  agri- 
cultural purposes,  and  will  also  tend  toward  sim- 
plifying the  land  problems  and  the  land-tax  schemes 
in  agricultural  districts." 

It  is  not  well  or  natural  that  all  farmers'  sons 
should  remain  on  the  farm.  On  the  other  hand,  as 
they  do  not  remain  in  sufficient  number  to  supply 
our  needed  agricultural  products,  it  is  necessary 
that  special  and  adequate  provision  be  made  for 
young  men  of  the  city  to  enter  agricultural  pur- 
suits. To  this  end  I  consider  it  desirable  that  a 
State  farm  of  at  least  two  thousand  acres  for  each 
million  of  population  be  made  a  part  of  the  equip- 
ment of  every  state  agricultural  college.  This 
farm  should  be  used  to  give  every  graduate  who  so 
desires  a  plot  of  groxmd  of  five  or  more  acres,  to 
operate  for  his  own  benefit  for  a  period  of  one, 
two  or  three  years,  immediately  after  graduating. 
Such  a  finishing  step  will  counteract  the  tendency 
of  graduates  to  seek  employment  in  non-agricul- 
tural pursuits  and  thus  prevent  drifting  perma- 
nently back  to  the  city.  This  plan,  too,  if  the  stu- 
dent be  successful,  will  enable  him  to  effect  a  sav- 


58  THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY 

ing  with  which  to  make  a  first  payment  on  a  State 
Settlement  Farm.  Should  this  large  college  farm  be 
operated  as  a  self-governing  community  under  col- 
lege supervision  or  under  the  supervision  of  the 
State  Land  Settlement  Board,  and  should  this  com- 
munity be  made  to  function  on  an  ever  higher 
economic,  political  and  social  plane,  it  will  develop 
citizenship  of  a  kind  that  every  democracy  must 
have  to  be  successful. 


THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY  59 


APPENDIX  THREE 
Statement  of  Dr.  Spillman 

Dr.  W.  J.  Spillman  was  Chief  of  the  Bureau  of 
Farm  Management  in  the  Department  of  Agricul- 
ture from  1915  to  1918.  Also  previous  to  this  date 
— in  fact,  since  1905 — he  was  connected  with  the 
Department  in  other  important  capacities.  He  is 
recognized  as  an  agricultural  scientist  of  high  rank. 
His  statement,  which  follows,  is  a  reprint  from  La 
Follette's  Magazine  of  June,  1919. 

"In  the  summer  of  1917  the  President  directed 
the  Federal  Trade  Commission  to  undertake  certain 
investigations  relating  to  the  production,  owner- 
ship, manufacture,  storage  and  distribution  of  food- 
stuffs. In  the  presidential  letter  to  the  Federal 
Trade  Commission  he  states:  *I  shall  direct  that 
Department  (Department  of  Agriculture)  to  co- 
operate with  you  in  this  enterprise.'  The  dealings 
of  the  Federal  Trade  Commission  with  the  Depart- 
ment of  Agriculture  were  held  with  the  Bureau 
of  Markets  and  it  was  mutually  agreed  between  the 
Bureau  of  Markets  and  the  Office  of  Farm  Manage- 
ment that  the  latter  office,  because  of  its  long  ex- 
perience in  cost  of  production  investigations,  should 
have  charge  of  this  phase  of  the  work. 

"Pursuant  to  this  understanding,  the  office  asked 
for  thirteen  letters  of  authorization  for  the  purpose 
of  sending  men  into  the  field  to  collect  data  in  ad- 
dition to  that  which    the    office  had  already  ac> 


60  THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY 

cumulated  during  the  ten  years'  investigation  of  this 
subject.  The  principal  object  sought  in  this  field 
work  was  to  secure  accurate  information  on  prices 
of  labor,  feed,  etc.  The  Secretary  of  Agriculture 
refused  to  grant  such  letters  of  authorization,  and 
called  me  to  his  office.  ITiis  was  early  in  October, 
1917. 

"In  the  interview  which  followed  he  ordered  me 
to  discontinue  the  cost  of  production  investigations, 
on  the  ground  that  the  farmer  is  not  entitled  to 
any  information  on  the  subject.  'The  only  use  ever 
made  of  such  information,'  said  the  Secretary,  *is 
for  agitators  like  this  man  Baer  of  North  Dakota 
to  go  out  and  stir  the  farmers  up  with  it.'  The 
next  day  I  received  from  the  Secretary  of  Agri- 
culture an  unsigned  letter,  drawn  for  his  signature, 
sent  me  ostensibly  that  I  might  suggest  changes 
in  it,  beginning  as  follows:  'According  to  the 
agreement  we  reached  in  our  conference  yesterday 
the  following  projects  in  the  Office  of  Farm  Man- 
agement will  be  discontinued.'  He  then  went  on  to 
enumerate  by  number  every  project  dealing  with 
cost  of  production.  This,  of  course,  put  a  stop  to 
our  field  work  so  far  as  it  related  to  this  particular 
investigation. 

Cost  of  Production  of  Live  Stock. 

"Early  in  January  (1918),  Mr.  Ed  C.  Lasater  of 
Texas  came  to  my  office  and  asked  me  the  status  of 
our  cost  of  production  investigations.  I  told  him 
the  facts  above  related.  He  suggested  that  he  might 
be  able  to  help  the  situation,  and  I  assured  him  that 
his  help  would  be  appreciated. 

"About  the  middle  of  January  a  telegram  was 
received  by  the  Secretary  reading  substantially  as 
follows:    'The  American  National  Live  Stock  Asso- 


THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY  61 

elation  in  session  at  Salt  Lake  City  desires  to  know 
the  status  of  the  investigation  of  the  cost  of  produc- 
tion of  beef  being  conducted  by  your  Office  of 
Fsu^n  Management.  Please  wire  reply  in  time  for 
me  to  read  it  to  this  convention  before  it  adjourns 
tomorrow  at  4:30.'  This  telegram  was  sent  to  me 
to  prepare  a  reply  for  the  Secretary's  signatiwe.  I 
prepared  substantially  the  following:  The  inves- 
tigations on  the  cost  of  production  have  been 
greatly  extended,  and  are  being  pushed  vigorously. 
A  report  on  them  will  be  ready  the  first  of  July.' 

"A  few  minutes  after  this  telegram  had  been 
sent  to  the  Secretary's  office  for  his  signature,  Mr. 
Harrison  of  the  Secretary's  office  called  me  over 
the  phone  and  the  following  conversation,  as  nearly 
as  I  can  recall  it,  took  place:  'Spillman,  what  in 
hell  do  you  mean  by  sending  a  telegram  like  this 
over  here  for  the  Secretary  to  sign?  You  know 
danmed  well  he  has  stopped  all  these  investiga- 
tions.' I  replied  that  I  knew  he  had  ordered  them 
stopped,  but  that  I  had  reason  to  think  he  was  go- 
ing to  order  them  started  again.  Mr.  Harrison 
asked  me  what  I  meant  by  such  a  statement,  and  I 
told  him  that  I  meant  exactly  what  the  statement 
implied. 

Making  a  Telegram  True. 

"Then  Mr.  Harrison  said:  'The  telegram  is  not 
true.'  I  replied  that  it  would  be  true  when  the 
Secretary  signed  it.  He  said  the  Secretary  would 
not  sign  it,  and  then  I  asked  him  if  he  knew  who 
Ike  Pryor  is,  this  being  the  name  of  the  man  who 
had  sent  the  original  telegram.  Mr.  Harrison  re- 
plied that  all  he  knew  was  that  Mr.  Pryor  was 
signed  as  the  president  of  the  association.  I  then 
remarked  that  he  represented  one  of  the  largest 


62  THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY 

and  livest  bunches  of  men  in  the  country,  and  I 
happened  to  know  that  these  men  knew  what  they 
were  after.  I  requested  that  he  tell  the  Secretary 
from  me  that  if  he  valued  his  job  he  would  sign 
that  telegram.  Within  half  an  hour  I  received  a 
very  courteous  note  from  Mr.  Harrison,  with  a  copy 
of  the  telegram  which  he  said  the  Secretary  had 
signed  and  sent. 

"The  next  day  I  renewed  my  request  for  the 
thirteen  letters  of  authorization,  and  the  request 
was  granted,  but  this  was  in  the  dead  of  winter  and 
it  was  not  practicable  to  send  men  into  the  field  un- 
til the  first  of  April.  Because  of  this  interruption 
of  the  work  as  the  result  of  the  Secretary's  refusal 
to  permit  it  to  proceed,  we  had  thus  lost  from  early 
in  October  to  April.  We  got  what  data  we  could 
during  April.  May  and  June,  which,  as  already 
stated,  was  merely  supplementary  to  data  which  wo 
had  been  ten  years  in  collecting. 

"On  the  12th  of  July  (1918),  twenty-three  re- 
ports were  submitted  to  the  Secretary,  relating  to 
the  cost  of  producing  various  agricultural  products, 
including  wheat  and  beef.  I  may  say  that  the 
data  on  the  cost  of  producing  beef  consisted  in  part 
of  careful  bookkeeping  records  covering  one  hun- 
dred and  forty-one  farm  years  and  the  fattening  of 
over  forty-eight  thousand  steers.  These  reports 
are  now  in  the  possession  of  the  Secretary  of  Agri- 
culture and  have  been  since  the  12th  of  July. 

Secretary   Houston  on  'Methods'. 

"In  his  letter  of  November  7,  1918,  to  the  Presi- 
dent  of  the  Senate,  Secretary  Houston,  commenting 
on  cost  of  production  studies,  said: 

'About  a  year  ago  the  results  of  one  of  the 

studies  were  brought  to  my  attention.    After  an 


THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY  63 

examination  of  them,  and  in  view  of  the  criti- 
cisms by  competent  experts  of  similar  studies,  I 
indicated  to  Doctor  Spillman,  who  was  Chief  of 
the  Office  of  Farm  Management  until  Septem- 
ber 1  (1918),  that  I  questioned  the  validity  of 
the  methods  pursued  in  the  studies  and  was  of 
the  opinion  that  the  exposition  and  interpreta- 
tion of  the  data  were  not  adequate.  Indicated  to 
him  my  desire  that  careful  consideration  be  given 
the  whole  matter  and  that  a  system  of  inquiry 
and  interpretation  be  devised  which  would  be  re- 
garded by  competent  students  of  farm  economics 
as  soimd,  and  which  would  furnish  results  rea- 
sonably reliable  and  creditable  to  the  depart- 
ment.' 

"I  am  willing  to  be  quoted  as  questioning  the 
veracity  of  the  Secretary  in  that  statement.  He 
never  advised  me  to  use  any  methods  in  this  in- 
vestigation. \XTiat  he  did  was  to  order  me  to  stop 
all  such  investigations,  stating  as  his  reasons  there- 
for thai  the  farmer  is  entitled  to  no  information  on 
cost  of  production. 

"This  opposition  of  the  Secretary  to  work  on  cost 
of  production  has  been  persistent  since  the  early 
days  of  his  administration.  It  is  true  that  by  stren- 
uous and  persistent  effort  I  had  been  able  to  force 
to  publication  a  number  of  bulletins  relating  to 
cost  of  production.  But  at  various  times  the  Secre- 
tary called  me  down  hard  for  offering  such  material 
for  publication,  making  it  perfectly  clear  to  me 
that  he  did  not  desire  such  work  to  be  done  by  the 
Department. 

"To  show  that  this  was  the  fixed  policy  of  the 
Secretarv,  I  may  refer  to  the  fact  that  very  early  in 
his  administration  there  was  circulated  through  the 


64  THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY 

Department  of  Agriculture  a  sheet  in  which  Sec- 
retary Houston  concurred,  that  the  Department  of 
Agricuhure  should  conduct  no  investigation  that 
would  reveal  the  profits  made  by  farmers  on  the 
cost  of  producing  farm  products,  and  that  no  rep- 
resentatives of  the  Department  of  Agriculture 
should  ever  even  intimate  that  it  is  possible  to  pro- 
duce too  much  of  any  product.  It  was  the  business 
of  the  farmer,  this  anonymous  circular  stated,  to 
produce,  and  it  was  the  business  of  the  Department 
of  Agriculture  to  show  the  farmer  how  to  produce. 

Why  Carver  Left  the  Department. 

"As  further  evidence  of  the  domination  of  the 
Rockefeller  interests  in  the  Department,  I  may  cite 
the  establishment  by  Mr.  Rockefeller  through  his 
General  Education  Board,  of  a  bureau  in  the  De- 
partment of  Agriculture  known  as  the  'Rural  Or- 
ganization Service'.  It  later  transpired  that  the 
purpose  of  Mr.  Rockefeller  in  establishing  this 
bureau  was  to  control  the  work  of  the  Department 
and  of  the  various  agricultural  colleges  of  the 
country;  but  these  gentlemen  made  the  mistake  of 
thinking  that  any  man  who  was  paid  a  good  salary 
would  do  what  he  was  ordered  to  do.  They  em- 
ployed Prof.  T.  N.  Carver,  of  Harvard  University, 
to  head  this  new  bureau.  Professor  Carver  came  to 
the  Department  with  much  enthusiasm  for  his 
work. 

"This  important  work  of  the  Bureau  of  Mar- 
kets was  made  subject  to  the  Rockefeller  Bureau 
in  order  that  its  activities  might  be  kept  properly 
under  control.  Professor  Carver  worked  very  hard 
and  conscientiously  and  in  due  time  worked  out  a 
series  of  very  important  projects,  the  carrying  out 
of  which  would  have  resulted  in  great  good  to 


THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY  65 

American  farmers.  These  projects  called  for  an 
expenditure  on  the  part  of  the  General  Education 
Board  of  $160,000  a  year.  When  they  were  sub- 
mitted to  the  Board  with  the  estimates,  the  Board 
simply  voted  to  give  no  money  whatever  for  this 
purpose,  and  made  no  explanation  of  why  they 
took  this  action.  Shortly  after  that,  another  type- 
written sheet  was  circulated  through  the  Depart- 
ment. It  related  to  Professor  Carver's  work,  and 
stated  that  Professor  Carver  had  misimderstood 
what  Mr.  Rockefeller  wanted.  Mr.  Rockefeller 
did  not  want  to  build  up  a  big  central  organization 
for  developing  rural  economic  problems.  What 
Professor  Carver  should  do  was  to  employ  about 
half  a  dozen  of  the  ablest  men  he  could  find  and 
send  them  around  to  the  various  state  institutions 
and  endeavor  to  interest  the  professors  of  econom- 
ics in  these  institutions  in  such  investigations.  Mr. 
Rockefeller  would  be  very  liberal  with  his  funds  for 
this  purpose.     (See  foot  note  by  the  author.) 

"Professor  Carver  sought  an  interview  with  the 
members  of  the  General  Education  Board,  in  which 
he  asked  them  if  their  purpose  in  getting  him  in 
the  Department  of  Agriculture  was  to  remove  the 
taint  from  Mr.  Rockefeller's  money  and  induce  in- 
stitutions to  accept  it  that  are  now  refusing  it. 
They  declined  to  answer  this  question." 

FOOTNOTE:  Both  the  members  of  the  General  Ed- 
ucation Board  and  the  men  who  control  the  Agricultural 
Department,  may  have  really  considered  that  It  would  be 
detrimental  to  the  public  interest  to  enlighten  the  farmer 
in  modem  business  methods,  especially  in  business  ac- 
countinsr. 

Such  an  enlightenment  would  doubtless  stimulate  agrri- 
cultural  business  organization  and  combination  between 
the  farmers,  particularly  in  the  matter  of  selling  their 
products.     The  Board'  may  have  feared  that  the  farmer. 


66  THE  COMING  LAND  POLICY 

if  better  organized  on  the  financial  side  of  his  business, 
would  combine  against  the  consumer  and  curtail  produc- 
tion for  the  purpose  of  needlessly  increasing  the  prices 
of  food  products.  Such  a  fear  might  have  been  quite 
natural  to  the  Board's  members.  In  fact,  profiteering  of 
this  kind  would  occur  in  some  cases.  But  to  oppose  for 
su.;h  a  reason  any  improvement  in  business  methods  of 
farming  is  sheer  social  folly  of  an  extremely  dangerous 
nature,  especially  since  it  is  so  vital  that  the  white  men 
return  to  the  land.  Incidental  drawbacks,  that  at  times 
inevitably  accompany  social  reforms,  must  be  met  in  a 
direct  manner  and  not  by  suppressing  progress  itself. 


This  book  is  DUE  on  the  last  date  stamped  below 


APR  4     1932 
APR  2  5  1992 

JUN  1  8  19S4 
'R  1  3  1936 


m  L-9-35»n-8,'28 


1251     Thum, 


T42c      The   coming 

land  policy. 


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